Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
So Last night, while resting and thinking under the star we memorized this psalm, or at least the parts I remembered. Tomorrow for church we are going to focus on this psalm by singing "Here I Am, Lord" and "O Lord, Our Lord, How Majestic is your name in all the earth." My sermon will be based on Psalm 8 and asking if we have the eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that still feels the Presence of God no matter where we are. Or have we become like Matthew 13:14-15You have set your glory in the heavens. 2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
5 You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them[f] with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: 7 all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’
Myken shows his stuff!
Pastor Drix and Tatu
Joseph receives a new coat
Sunset
God said. "I will remember my covenant.."
heather does her Hair, just like at home?
Heather does her hair
Kandi gets ready for the day
Cleaning the Walls gets everyone involved
Heather spends time with Kervenson
Mosquito bites on my foot
Steve helping with the laundry
laundry day
William Willimon wrote, in 2010, a book entitled “Why Jesus?”
Add a comma between the two words, and the interrogative sentence asks — of us — an entirely different question. A question that, most likely, Haitians upon Haitians were asking repeatedly following the earthquake of 2010.
In the midst of a snow-freezing rain-rain storm yesterday, I began reading this book and was not only surprised but also amazed that when coming to page 22, I encountered the sentence-paragraph: “I just returned from Haiti: they still joyfully hear Jesus.”
Truly, I did a double-take, even a triple-take having to read that sentence-paragraph several times to make sure — almost like pinching myself — that it truly was typed in this manuscript and on this page. How coincidental, I thought, that I should be reading Willimon’s reference to Haiti’s abiding faith in and for God — in spite of and through such devastation and tragedy — while people whom I know are sleeping under the stars on the rooftop of Haiti’s own House of Faith.
I was also struck by the composition-format used by Willimon to express once and only once with simplicity and no belaboring the profound statement that “[He had] just returned from Haiti: they still joyfully hear Jesus.”
Only in journalistic writing is the creation of one-sentence paragraphs the norm. Yet Willimon juxtapositions this one-sentence paragraph between sentence-long paragraphs. “Why, Jesus?” we might ask. “Is there a message here? An intended emphasis here? An implied meaning for each of us ‘with eyes to see and ears to hear’ to consider, not just for the Haitians but for ourselves as well?”
How blessed will be those who hear “the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart” this morning during church; and how blessed, uplifted, enlivened, and encouraged you — each and all of you — will be because everyone in your congregation is “outrageously happy” in and because their faith in and love of God enables them to “still joyfully hear Jesus.”
Most assuredly, in our prayers…and…Numbers 6:24-26
There is an adage that speaks for the stars comparing each of them to a friend — a good friend — who may not always be seen, may not always be physically present; but who, even in his or her absence offers comfort in and through the thought as well as the fact that figuratively speaking the friend “is always there.”
Jesus is like that, isn’t He?
Prayer is like that, isn’t it?
There you are lying under the stars; looking up at the stars; contemplating “God’s heavens: the work of His fingers: the moon and the stars, which He has set in place”; and proclaiming in the midst of the distant sounds of a revving motorcycle engine, a howling dog, and a crowing rooster that the universe’s Creator is the great I AM as, in awe and with reverence, you quote the psalmist’s words, “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
I could not help but think, as I read these your words in the early morning hours today, how small you must feel lying on the rooftop “underneath that big blue sky” and how vulnerable and alone you must think of yourselves as being 1,540 miles from your earthly homes.
And I couldn’t help but think, as I looked at your posted-pictures how, because “our ways are not His ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts,” God continues “sifting” you even inside the walls of the compound by choosing to constantly humble you and your way of life and thinking in the midst of your already plentiful sacrifices. I know that each of you are seasoned missionaries and ambassadors of and for Christ; but I could not help but admire and respect the fact that after four previous trips, you, for the fifth consecutive year, have chosen, CHOSEN to return to the mosquitos and to laundry done by hand in order to “go to and find Jesus where He is” rather than expecting and demanding Him to come to you on your terms and within the four walls of a church.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “I must keep alive in myself the desires for my true country, which I shall not find until after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.”
I envy your vantage point on your mattresses on your metal frames on the orphanage’s rooftop underneath the stars because your presence there offers you an up-close-and-personal view of your “true country” while you are affirming to God that “the main object of [your] life [is] to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.”
The mosquitos may be relentless and the humidity stifling, but the stars in all their brilliance speak the song’s truism: “What a Friend you have in Jesus” while simultaneously affirming the veracity of the psalmist’s words: “O LORD, You have searched me, and known me./You know when I sit down and when I rise up;…/You search out my path and my lying down,…/You hem me in, behind and before,/and lay Your hand upon me…./Where can I go from Your Spirit?/Or where can I flee from Your presence?”
You are there, but you are not alone.
Our prayers — like a “good, yet unseen friend” — are there with you.
Jesus — a “good, yet unseen Friend” — is there with you.
The stars speak reassurance and gratitude; be comforted by their presence, their friendship, and their conversation with your “still, small voice.”
Numbers 6:24-26