PSALM 105 - Feeling Like a Balloon Filled With Helium

Oh, give thanks to the Lord! Call upon His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing praises to Him. Tell of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! Seek the Lord and His strength. Seek His presence continually! Remember the wondrous works that He has done, His miracles and the judgments He uttered, O offspring of Abraham, His servant, children of Jacob, His chosen ones!
He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers His covenant forever, the word that He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant that He made with Abraham, His sworn promise to Isaac as an everlasting covenant, saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance." (Verses 1-11)

But this is the new covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. And no longer will each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more." Jeremiah 31

I participated in the Philadelphia Harvest Crusade via satellite at my church on Saturday evening. Greg Laurie preached a stirring sermon that called many forward to ask Jesus into their hearts. They came in a steady stream from the many tiers of the auditorium and stood before Greg's podium as music played and singers sang and Jesus walked among them. As surely as He did when we could touch His flesh and brush against His clothing. Young men with tears spilling from their blue eyes. Young women with their hankies to their faces. And it all came flooding back to me. The catch in my chest. The need to cry almost choking me to death. Not knowing exactly what was going on, but understanding somewhere in the deepest part of me that I would never be the same.

 I was six years old. The preacher in our Baptist church asked us to come forward if we wanted Jesus in our hearts. I did. More than anything. I still do. More than anything. I knew Jesus died for me. Sunday after Sunday, as Baptist preachers tend to do, the sermons reminded me Jesus took my place. Not a rampant sinner at six, yet I knew I loved this Jesus. And He was pounding on the door to my heart (Revelation 3), not knocking quietly. In my crying, I gave away the old Kay...not very old, I know, but nevertheless needy...sobbed her straight out of me. Because, when I repeated the prayer of faith after my preacher, Someone Else took her place. And filled me like a balloon is filled with helium. My soul felt fat and light--wanted to soar above the pews and shout "Glory!" Only I didn't even know to shout such a thing then. I felt giggly. Like it was my birthday. Then for a whole week, all I wanted to do was die and go to heaven. Sincerely. But that's another story that needlessly worried my parents.

I need to remember that day more often. The wondrous work God did in my heart. That day He made a covenant with me. A covenant sealed with the blood of His Son. God means it. Forever. I belong to him for a thousand thousands of years and more. Never will He leave. Never has He. Never will He forsake me. Never has He. Jesus will stand before God, the Father, one day and, with His hands on my shoulders, He'll say, "This one's ours, You know. Kay belongs to us." Oh, my heart gives thanks! I want to tell the world about this Savior Who saw a little girl who'd need Him so. Who loved a little kid in the same measure He loves big people. My God wanted to dwell in my nascent soul--to grow me up in Him. So you don't have to ask me why I'd continually seek His presence or sing a love song to Jesus at the top of my voice. I am loved! I can walk right into God's presence. I can feel Him living in me. What does a person do without God Himself living in her heart? What fills that place? Oh, I know. I know. It's empty. A vacuum seeking everything and finding nothing. I barely remember it. Though I've taken my Savior to places I regret with all my heart, and though the place in me became almost incomprehensibly small, Jesus was still there. And I was still His. Life without Him must be so vastly hopeless. Yet God knows even those of us who don't know Him. Desires to take up residence in our lives--our actual bodies--and turn us into who He created us to be. That is quite an offer considering the misery without Him. Don't you think?

I am now sixty-five. For almost sixty years I've known Jesus. I haven't acted like it some of that time. And if His covenant with me weren't something God swore to me, we'd be done. I didn't keep my part of the bargain too many times to count. I broke covenant. God never has. On that December day of my sixth year, Jesus made me His forever. He's determined to finish in me what He started. Growing me up into heaven. Determined with all His strength to forgive my foolishness and willfulness. His covenant with me sealed with the blood from His palms and side. No. Jesus paid too big a price for my life to let me be. And rather than irk me, it makes me crazy in love with Him! Who would do that? Really? Love me that much? Live in the slums of my heart so He can eventually make a place in me fit for a King? Oh, Father, I do remember the wondrous work You've done! And now I know to say, "Glory!"

PSALM 104 - How Clean Is Your House?

Let the glory of the Lord endure forever. Let the Lord be glad in His works. He looks at the earth and it trembles. He touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. Let my meditation be pleasing to Him. As for me, I shall be glad in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, Oh my soul. Praise the Lord!  (Verses 31-35)

Arab. Pleasing. A primitive root: to braid, a pledge given in exchange for delivery of material goods. It implies sharing or association on a meaningful level. "Let my meditation braid me with God, as a pledge of my obedience to Him and His watch care over me."

During my morning devotional and prayers one morning, the sun came suddenly streaming through  one of the windows in my home. I know the light was caused by the day opening up more fully, but the drenching of my face in the warmth of the new day did something also to my heart. My meditation was on purity of heart and soul. My yearning to be cleansed--clean. And as if orchestrated by the lighting director of a Broadway play, this ray of golden hope struck my face as I was praying for my God to light the darkened places in my life. Then I saw a picture. In my spirit I traveled with God to my soul. The center of me. The light had traveled there also, showing cobwebs and doors ajar, behind which still hid deceits, hurts or ignominious thoughts. What I knew in an instant was the light longed to shine into all of me. To sweep down the walls, vacuum up the crumbs of fear and doubt, to swing open the hesitant doors still obscuring sin and make me shine clean for the presence of the Lord Who dwells in me. To give the Holy Spirit a spotless living quarters. A holy tabernacle.

I thought of that morning this morning as I read these verses. Our meditations braid us into God. Bond us with Him because our God meets us there. Our sin for His righteousness. Our worries for His power. Our death for His life. A holy pledge to us that our devotion to our God is reciprocated with His pleasure. Not pleased because we become obsequious slaves! No! Pleased because we seek Him out in order to know Him. God isn't different from us in that respect. Made in His image, I would argue that we are much like Him in that respect. God loves us! We need to soak in that knowledge a bit. The One Who can strike a mountain and make it smoke or just look at the earth and make it tremble, gently listens as I speak to Him. All-Power stoops to hear my stuff.

But, like all parents, my Father wants a clean room. Things put in order. After all, my Father lives in my home. By the Holy Spirit, I am a tent of God--a little tabernacle of the Holy of Holies. If God had come into my life and tried to clean me up all at once, I wouldn't have survived the house keeping. Too much in disarray. Too unkempt and untidy to throw it all out at once. So great is my Father's patience with the slums in which He took up residence that He makes rearranging my interior a process I can handle. We work together and in so doing become braided in trust, hope, faith, love and joy. I want an ever brighter home for my God. Sparkling, shiny, large and comfortable for the Holy Spirit to dwell there. So that my God knows this tabernacle is a sanctuary filled with light, transparent not only to Him but to all I meet. For my God to be glad as He sits in the easy chair of my soul as we talk of everything all day is my highest goal. To please Him with the intentions of my heart and the purity of my soul is still a work in progress. But I am glad of the process. Hopeful of the outcome. And intent on getting this house spotless.

PSALM 104 - Oblivious as a Dead Skunk?

These all look to You to give them their food in due season. When You give it to them, they gather it up. When You open Your hand, they are filled with good things. When You hide Your face, they are dismayed. When You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created and You renew the face of the ground.
(Verses 27-30)

We have some really big spiders who create quite extravagant webs among the trees of our neighborhood. Often the webs are spun over wide expanses from tree to tree. I have no idea how they do that--get from one tree to another without the web already existing. I know they can't fly. Caught in these webs are all manner of insects, large and small. Luscious lunch and dinner for the rotund arachnids waiting in the center of their home for the next unsuspecting bug. Food.

Unfortunately for some of the skunks who live in the wetlands nearby our home, cars still travel the streets at night when the black and whites go hunting. I saw one dead in the road with a group of hungry buzzards picking at it for lunch the other day. Munching on the remnants of the skunk's collision with a wheel. Food.

Hummingbirds fly freely from one blooming plant to another in our Southern California feasting haven. Happily filling their tiny bodies with the honeyed nectar. Coyotes hunt for rabbits in the brush in the flatlands. Rabbits eat the plants in the same plain. Plants drink the rain and peek out to see the sun as seedlings fresh born. Food.

And none of them is aware of where it comes from. They don't look up and say, "Thank you, God." They live until they die. They are then dust or a meal for something else. It is the cycle the Creator set in motion for all living things except man. We are supposed to be smarter than that. Imagined and made to know there is God and to understand it is He Who provides everything in due season. Raised up to understand God is good. And He gives good things from His open hand. Each time the Creator looked at what He'd brought forth, He said, "It is good." And set man over it all to rule and tend. Because we have the capacity to think like God. To understand the cycles of His care. And the heart to thank Him for the goodness of it all.

The first lie in the Garden of Eden was when the serpent questioned God's character, His goodness. Essentially, Satan said, "If God were good, He'd want you to be wise like He is. That's why He doesn't want you to eat from the tree in the midst of the garden. He's keeping the best thing from you." Provision--extravagant provision--was all around the man and woman. All they could see when the devil got through with them was the one thing they didn't have. The serpent didn't try to trick the spider, the wolf or the elephant. They didn't care. Mankind does. In accusing God, they sinned and lost the joy of living with the One Who made it all "good" for them to enjoy.

Plan A. All along. Send the Spirit so that mankind isn't only created to look like God, but also to have Him live within. Create in us a new heart. Provide for us a new birth into life that doesn't die when our bodies turn to dust. Walk again with mankind and take the beatings and the sneers of the enemy once more. Finish it forever. The accusation God isn't good. For He provides not only our food in due season, but our salvation forever. None of creation knows this secret but mankind. They go about spinning, soaring, hunting and scavenging unaware of the magnificence of the cycle. While the God of All, Whose heavens stretch past man's ever fully comprehending and Whose mind is infinite in imagination, knowledge and wisdom offers His open hand and heart to us.

"Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" Jesus

"Which one of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone instead? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father, Who is in heaven, give good things to those who as Him!" Jesus

PSALM 104 - Big Mommas With Their Kids

He made the moon to mark the seasons. The sun knows its time for setting. You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking food from their God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all. The earth is full of Your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both great and small. There go the ships and Leviathan, which You formed to play in it.  (Verses 19-26)

In March of 2003, Bill and I traveled to the tip of Baja California, Mexico, to go whale watching. There is nothing there but sand and a little brush. The whale watching adventure was a "green" expedition, so everything had to be environmentally safe, including toilets and showers. They used the word shower loosely. We had what looked like enema bags filled with water. These were set in the sun early in the morning in order to gather enough heat from the sun to produce water warm enough to get us sufficiently wet to wash our hair and suds our bodies. If we ran out, we ran out. But, I digress. It had been a dream of mine to go out in the small motor boat and fellowship with Leviathan for years. In March, the mother gray whales appear with their calves and some whale lovemaking also is in order. We were told that many of the mothers had themselves been babies when boats such as ours cruised into the waters with spectators reaching out their hands or setting up their cameras for a moment of connection with these giant sea mammals. Thus, the speculation the mommies were unafraid to push their spawn close to the boat for a bit of human babysitting while they swam free in the waters around us.

Our first trip out was in the morning. "We don't see whales on each of our forays," explained the captain of our eight-man motor boat. "Hopefully we will today." My heart was beating with excitement as we sped out over the dark blue water. Then we saw little geysers spewing from the water and the boat slowed. Up from near the boat rose a gray whale, spy-hopping fewer than ten feet away. Looking with her steady eye at we humans in the boat. Beside her was her calf.

As if on cue, the baby came swimming over to the boat and nudged it with its nose. "If you put your hand into the corner of its mouth, the whale will open its mouth and let you scratch her baleen," instructed the captain. "They love that!"

He didn't have to ask me twice. I leaned over the boat and coaxed the calf to my waiting hand and found the corner of its mouth. The next thing I knew, my entire hand was inside the mouth of a waiting whale who seemed to laugh with joy that I was giving a free sea massage.

Then the mother bumped the boat, scratching herself as if to say, "What about me?" She emerged on the other side. Signaling playtime was over.

Every time we went out to search, we saw whales. Up close. All sixty to eighty feet of them, splashing, diving, spy-hopping, and yes, mating. The massive space that is the ocean makes even them small in comparison. Playing. Living with family. Eating. Sleeping. Traveling from one end of the earth to the other. All in the world over which we travel in ships and planes. In the depths where mountains can be 13,000 feet high. A macrocosm of teeming life. Another world.

Out of the ocean yesterday an entire island sprouted. The earth shook violently in Pakistan and the ocean floor spit up a brand new piece of land. The miracle of the mixing gases in the layers of the earth looking for and finding release as they blow through Earth's crust. Mysterious movements we aren't aware of in a world just beneath our feet.

I just read an article describing the Hubble telescope's searches into what scientists thought were black holes. After leaving the telescope in the same place for eleven days, thinking there would be nothing but blackness recorded there at the end of that time, what was revealed was a depth of number of galaxies amazing in scope. What we thought was only darkness was in reality a window into more galaxies than we could count. There are over one hundred billion galaxies in space, at last count. In an ever expanding cosmos, will we ever discover all of them? There just might be an infinite number. We just don't have the power to see them yet...or never.

It's just too big. This created world. It's ordered and intentional. The moon and sun controlling tides, animal habits and habitats, vegetation and seasons. Oh, our God wants us to look at it and marvel. Wonder at His mind. Glory in His imagination. Joy that we are made in His image, able to reason and reach for what He knows so we can know Him more fully. Not so we can rule God out as Designer, but so we can capture for this world all that the Godhead meant in the beginning, "Let us make man in our own image." And God said when He looked on all He'd made, "It is very good."

PSALM 104 - God's Zoo

You make springs gush forth in the valleys. They flow between the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. They wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of heaven dwell. They sing among the branches. From Your lofty abode, You water the mountains. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your work. You cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart. The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that He planted. In them the birds build their nests. The stork has her home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats. The rocks are a refuge for the rock badger.  (Verses 10-16)

Adam stood up and took his first few God-given breaths. His surroundings were lush with vegetation. The mighty trees that banked the flowing river were heavy with luscious fruit that scented the dewy air with sweetness. The woman by his side was beautiful beyond belief. "Ah-ha!" he'd cried. "Finally bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. I am not alone!" Hand in hand the lovers walked with the God of their creation learning the garden and its secrets. Mountains arose in the distance, rocky crags glistening in the sunshine. Streams flowed swiftly from their heights into valleys painted rich emerald green. Moving on the slopes were goats and gnus, badgers and skunks, elk and deer, horses and wild dogs. A menagerie of brilliance. "How did you come up with these?" Adam must have asked his God. Giggles of glee arose in the man as he watched a gopher burrow beneath the ground and a serpent slither out of sight. Monkeys swung from tree to tree calling loudly to each other in a language only they understood. The activity swirled under, around, above and beneath the new man and woman. A showcase of newly minted Earth.

I remember the first time I took Heather, our first born, to the zoo. I'd grown accustomed to elephants, zebras, gorillas and yak. Knew the smell of the zoo as well as the circus where watching lions and tigers as they yawned their boredom or jumped through hoops had become less wonderful for me. But with Heather, I saw them all for the first time as she jumped up and down with the apes (she would make gorilla faces for months afterward), squealed at the lumbering elephants, and marveled at the barking seals. A wonderland of animals almost too marvelous to comprehend. Butterflies and hummingbirds, flamingos and parrots painted by God in carnival colors. And again, the question, "How did you come up with these, Father?" Too distinct in design to be random. Too specific in purpose to be unplanned. What a mind my Father has!

Unforgotten. The tiniest to the greatest of His specific beasts are cared for by the winds and rains, sunlight and starshine of His earth. God takes care to feed His little birds and cloak the hillsides with glory (Matthew 6). The ecosystem is a masterfully planned to restore and reconstitute itself. Each element of creation is intentional and interdependent. Order doesn't just happen. We don't throw pieces of a watch up into the air and wait for them to create a time piece. Someone thinks how to design and produce a watch. We don't question that. So why the questions about God's creation?

As created beings ourselves, we've been made in His image. Out of all the animals in God's famous zoo, we are specially designed to know and yearn for Him. But we are a bunch of smarty pants. The minds God bestowed on us are a double-edged sword. And just as Adam and Eve in the garden, we've listened to the world tell us just how brilliant we are. So much so that we don't need God. And, quite frankly, we don't want Him butting in on our business.We can explain away the rhinoceros and the emu. And our brilliant explanation? Oh, they just happened. And God would chuckle if the conclusion weren't so absurd and self-destroying. All creation is designed to point to Him. And we have turned the finger the other direction. In our hubris. To our shame. And our God would pour out on us without measure His grace, love, guidance and salvation. He wills to make our faces shine with an abundance of oil and our hearts to sing with new wine. It is still His desire to walk with us in the garden, talking about our day, examining our lives, wondering at His goodness. God still wants to provide for us as surely as He feeds the wild goats on the hillside and the dolphins in the sea.

Look around at His global zoo today. The world is open to us to marvel at the ocean and its depths or the mountains and their heights. Landscapes extravagantly created and sustained by their Designer. Watch ants march and butterflies flit, puppies snuggle and cats prowl, eagles soar and fish jump, deer pose and skunks scurry. Take it in. It's made for your delight in and worship of God.

For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies, Lord of all, to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flow'r, sun and moon and stars of light; Lord of all, to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth, and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild, Lord of all, to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind's delight, for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight, Lord of all, to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.

For Thyself, best Gift Divine! To our race so freely giv'n; for that great, great love of Thine, peace on earth and joy in heaven, Lord of all to Thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise!
Folliott S. Pierpoint

And the congregation said: "Amen!"

PSALM 104 - The Grand Master in His Studio

Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord, my God, You are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering Yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. He lays the beams of His chambers on the waters; He makes the clouds His chariot; He rides on the wings of the winds, His ministers a flaming fire. He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment. The waters stood above the mountains. At Your rebuke they fled. At the sound of Your thunder they took flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that You appointed them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
(Verses 1-9)

Man is the only created being who can fully appreciation creation. We are born with a sense of wonder and awe at things too great for us. The Grand Canyon is called just that "grand." So magnificent we catch our breath. The ocean when it's calm or roiling, filled with sea life we are still discovering. So deep that volcanoes spew beneath the service and squid live their lives in depths we haven't delved into. Forests covered in butterflies so thick we can't see the vegetation for their habitation on the limbs of every available tree. Flowing streams with fish that jump for joy. Highest peaks, snow-capped and glistening pink in the sunset of winter. Color, texture, composition all speak  of the One Who composed it for our delight.

Man is the only created being who can express appreciation for creation. Dogs don't write songs about the beauty of their surroundings. We do. Monet used to sit and paint one scene as it looks in the morning, midday and evening. To capture its beauty as if with a time-lapse camera. Hymns and symphonies extol the wonders of the universe. Only man looks at the stars and wonders how far away they are. Sets about discovering the indiscoverable out of the awe inherent in us.

Man is created to worship the Creator. To look to the One Who is behind designing the tiniest cell in our bodies, programmed to predict and produce one unique human being. To long for relationship with God out of the sheer amazement at His brilliance. At His immensity. At His complexity. God made us in His image so we'd want to know Who our real Father is and look for Him. The created universe assures us that we don't have to look very far nor very hard. God wows me with the new bird of paradise that just peeped out of its green shoot this morning to greet me when I walked out onto my patio. The hummingbird singing in the tree outside my window today as its little chest heaves and its feathers vibrate with the work of it feels like a tiny gift to me as it winds its way from flower to flower. Like my Father is winking at me. "Slow down and look around at all I've made. It will still you. Center you. Make you look at Me." And it does. The God of All, paintbrush in hand, with our joy in mind, spent six days splashing color and texture, with broad strokes and finite details, onto Earth's canvas so we'd look upon it as an artist studies a masterpiece in the National Museum of Art. Studying His technique. Appreciating His talent. Adoring His mind. The grand master is still lord over all of it. And I am His.

PSALM 103 - God Is Not An Egomaniac

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, O you, His angels, you mighty ones who do His word, obeying the voice of His word! Bless the Lord, all His hosts, His ministers who do His will! Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!  (Verses 19-22)

 Every country has its Obama, Putin, Castro, Queen Elizabeth or Assad. Rulers freely chosen or those who've taken over in tyranny. Somebody heads us up wherever we live. A certain eminence accompanies their reign. The position brings, to a greater or lesser degree, weightiness. Glory. CEO's are paid more than hourly employees. Bosses have more power than the ones they manage. And, the greater the power, the greater the responsibility. Greater honor for the good; deeper ignominy for the bad. It's interesting to me that we all recognize this until it comes to God. I've heard people castigate our God for seeking glory for Himself. For wanting us to praise Him--creating us for that purpose. The irony, of course, is that since He has dominion over all things, He doesn't need for us to honor Him. It doesn't massage His ego as it does the pride of men and women. Our God simply deserves all honor, glory and praise because He is! The Lord of all--every dominion, kingdom, republic, monarchy--rules all. Unquestionably, eternally, benevolently. All heads of state, all lowly servants, will answer only to Him. Do answer only to Him whether acknowledged or not.

Around the mighty throne are living beings and angels. Praising Him day and night. When God speaks to the angels, they listen to His words and obey His commands. Often on our behalf. Hebrews says "they are sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation (Chapter 1)." In our world today, angels move among us, seen and unseen, doing what Jesus tells them to. Protecting or announcing, serving or directing, they ascend and descend at any given moment from the throne room to us. Straight from His presence into our chaos. They know what we don't. They see what we can't, yet. How thrilling to serve the Almighty One this way. We are made a little lower than they, yet our salvation is something they will never experience. The plan of God--the mystery of the ages--to tabernacle in mankind was revealed to the angels in the death and resurrection of Christ. God didn't tell His angels what He was doing beforehand (Ephesians 3). It was a mystery into which they longed to be included (1 Peter 1). So God didn't necessarily explain to Gabriel the entire plan when the angel was sent to speak with Mary about the baby conceived of the Holy Spirit. But imagine the crackling energy it created in him to finally announce part of it. God born of woman. Both God and man. Trusted enough by the Father to carry the message to Earth. The angels have eyes to see all we will one day marvel at. Our salvation will be central to their praise. O bless our God, you His angels!

How blessed are the armies sent to do battle for Him. Who are assured of victory even before pursuit. The hosts of heaven. Since Earth's foundation, God's hosts have battled for those God loves. Elisha saw them when the king of Syria was after him in Dothan. Surrounded by an army with horses and chariots, Elisha was unafraid. Told his trembling servant, "Those who are with us are more than those against us." God opened the servant's eyes to see a mountain filled with horses and chariots of fire all around them. Then there was Michael, the archangel, whose fight with the princes of darkness who controlled Persia and Greece was revealed to Daniel. Mighty warriors facing off in a realm that controls the event of ours. Yet given the privilege of announcing God's heart to those who wait for an answer from Him. The hosts of God. Revelation 19 describes the armies of heaven following Jesus as He captures the beast, who has gathered the armies of the world to make war against Him at the end of it all. The outcome? The destruction of evil forever. Imagine seeing God the Son hung in shame on a cross on a hill on our tiny planet. Disturbed and curious, outraged and at the ready, to rescue Jesus from the brutality of the men and women their God made. How they must have had to stand their ground, feet firmly planted on heaven's firmament, unmoving, and without command from the Lord of Hosts. Faithful warriors who attend the imperatives of the Almighty God had to stand aside and watch the Lamb of God slaughtered. But what rejoicing there was when Jesus entered heaven and sat down in His rightful place beside the Father. Shouts of victory! Blessings to their God! And a first glimpse into the Godhead's great salvation.

Oceans, plants, streams and stars proclaim the unmatched brilliance of our Lord. The singing of the birds, the movement of Earth upon its axis, the changing tides, hurricanes and earthquakes, sunshine and twilight, mountain heights and volcanoes in the depths of the sea all proclaim the imagination of a Creator too vast to fully comprehend. DNA--a single cell--the blueprint for every function of each individual's design. No two people alike. God's incomprehensible attention to detail. The colors that brush across the sky at sunset, the dew that wets the grass at dawn, the warm hand of a child, the encouragement of a smile...we bless Him with our acknowledgment that He is too wonderful for us. That we acquiesce to the fact we are small and He is great. Not so we grovel. But so we rejoice that a personality so far beyond our grasp chooses to engage with our humanity because He loves us. God wants us to marvel at and bless Him. To bask in the glory Jesus died to share with us. To dwell with our God forever in the splendor He has lavished upon us.