Daily Lesson for May 14, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 8 verses 1 through5:

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.

What a psalm and what a vivid picture!

There is the majesty of the heavens with moon and stars and galaxies upon galaxies. It is a wonder for us to behold; and yet in all that expansiveness there is then also a word uttered from the mouth of a child which God takes note of and which somehow has the power to still an enemy and change the world.

"What is man that you are mindful of him," the psalmist asks, "and the son of man that you care for him?"

In all the vastness and grandeur of the cosmos, God is paying attention to us; God is counting on us -- wee babes -- to play our part, to speak up, to do whatever small thing has been given us to do.  And it matters. 

There is an old poem whose author is unknown to me but which I first heard from the great black mystic Howard Thurman:

"Heir of the kingdom neath the skies,
Often he falls yet falls to rise,

Stunned, bleeding, beaten back,
Holding still to the upward track,

Playing his part in creation's plan,
God-like in image, this is man.

We are tiny -- minuscule in this vast cosmos. Yet God has sown eternity into each of our hearts. And we each have our parts to play; and all that is asked of us is that we play them well.