Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

We will worship you

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

From Psalm 46
God is our refuge and our strength, our ever-present help in time of trouble. Therefore, we fear not, though the earth be shaken and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.

I have a pair of awesome binoculars. Sometimes I watch our chickens from a little ways off. All five of them will do this. They scare up the dirt and cover themselves with dust. A little chicken-print, just large enough, appears in the ground they've cleaned. They primp, and settle in. They will do this every day if the weather's right. And when they make their chicken-prints in a nesting box, later we will find an egg.

The sparrows quickly find their way to our backyard when I've filled their feeders. The chickens notice. They wait below for their share. There is nothing better they can do with their time.

In The Jungle Book, a fire threatens everything. The Red Flower. But Mowgli's elephant friends carve new rivers just in the nick of time, and the rerouted water over-runs the fire. Earth, air, fire, water, and their Maker. God's creation flows and flows. Synchrony reigns.

We can really mess it up. Even if it's only for a moment, it might be one of those God-moments - you know, the ones that last a thousand years? Our bodies won't be around for much of that, so why do we think we have to do so much self-protecting and self-promoting, with our carefully blinded eyes looking away from "incidental" destruction?

God told us to "exercise dominion," that's why. We cling like crazy to that verse in Genesis 1. But what God didn't say was for us to put ourselves first. In fact, Jesus made it clear that he meant the opposite.

Francis Schaeffer says, simply, we must "treat the thing as having value itself." And Nancy Pearcey elegantly writes about what is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate, "We participate in the work of God himself, as agents of his common grace, entering upon a lifelong quest to devote our skills and talents to building things that are beautiful and useful."

That keeps me busy, right? We make beautiful things. We build useful things. We settle into our own finger-prints and lay people-eggs. Our yolks are rich, and our whites hold up in the mixer. Those eggs make a lemon meringue pie for the ages. And in this work, we are not concerned with mountains falling into the sea. That's God's problem.

And God isn't something we simply think about, but God is the One we worship. We can finally turn away from the mirror, and with our hands and eyes and nose and ears and mouth, worship God instead of the work of our hands.

The psalm continues, "Be still, and know that I am God." Thank you, Lord, for reminding me every day to find the quiet. You will never stop sharing with me, never stop. Let me fall down on my knees and trust you.

Devotions Archive

We will worship you

Tuesday, March 28, 2017