Monday, April 2, 2012

The Splendor of God

“You alone are the LORD.  You made the skies and the heavens and all the stars.  You made the earth and the seas and everything in them.  You preserve and give life to everything, and all the angels of heaven worship you.”  (Neh. 9:6 NLT)

            What aspect of nature fills you with a sense of awe and causes you to reach out to the Creator in a spirit of worship?  Would it be a spectacular sunrise or sunset …a full-colored rainbow … a Rocky Mountain snowcapped peak … a zillion stars twinkling like diamonds in the night sky … icebergs crashing with a thunderous roar … schools of dolphins jumping and racing over a foamy sea?  It might be as simple as a newborn baby smiling at you from a bassinet?  A new life fashioned after the image of God is fascinating to gaze upon.  Anyone of these things is enough to stir our inner spirit and direct our hearts towards God.

            Nothing stirs my inner spirit more than the sound of the wind whistling through the pine trees in northern Pennsylvania where I grew up.  Along the driveway at my grandma’s farmhouse were a row of long needled pine trees.  As a young boy, I remember lying in bed at night listening to the musical sounds generated by the gentle blowing breezes as they blew through the branches.  A sense of peace pervaded my heart and I felt safe and secure.  It was a pleasant sound I won’t soon forget.

            Music played an important part in the lives and worship of God by the Israelites of the Old Testament.  They used trumpets to call the people to worship.  One trumpet was used to summan the leadership, and two trumpet blasts meant everyone must attend.  Asaph, the son of Berechiah, was King David’s music director and served in that capacity for over forty years.  Asaph is responsible for at least twelve of the Psalms (50,73-83), and undoubtedly wrote the music for many of David’s psalms. 

            The one we worship today is not only a God of beauty and order (creation is proof of that), but he is also the originator of music.  We are told in Job 38:7 that “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”  Both the beauty of nature and music were created to bring glory to our Creator God. 

            The next time you have the opportunity to watch the sunrise with all its gold-orange-red-blue-yellow hues, or listen to the musical whispering of the pines, be sure to lift your voice in praise and thanksgiving to the great Creator God who made it all possible.  You would be orchestrating a glorious act of worship. 

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