post by Lisa Buffum, September 29, 2022
Begin by reading Psalm 8 on Biblegateway.com or in your own Bible.
There is really something about being outdoors that helps one to reflect on how big of a God we serve. Kansas skies feel vast, and on a clear night, so many stars are visible. Sometimes, I simply like to go outside after dark where I look at the moon and the stars and marvel at the great expanse of God.
Psalm 8 is a psalm of wonder for me. It has been one of my favorites for quite a long time. When my kids were little, we had two books based on Psalms (8 and 139) which we read over and over and over. So, I mostly have those two memorized. For me, there is something wonderous about verses 3 and 4:
“When I consider Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars,
which You have set in place,
What is mankind that You are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?”
I love the word “mindful.” When our oldest daughter was in college, there was a young man in many of her college classes with her. I could tell he was “mindful” of Katy; that is the word I would use to describe him. She was often on his mind. When class was cancelled, he would text Katy that she could stay home. He was thoughtful. He encouraged her. He teased her and joked with her. He was smitten. I thought there was something there, but for the first couple of years, she was not interested. In their junior year of college, however, they started to date. And, this is the man she married who is now our son-in-law.
What business does God have being mindful of me? If I stop to consider how big our Creator God is, how He made the moon and the stars, the things of nature, the animals and the birds and the fish and the insects, all of it . . . Yet, He is mindful of us. He cares about us. We are very special to Him. We are often (maybe always) on His mind. He has made us a little lower than the angels and put us as rulers over the earthly things He created. It is amazing. Really, it is.
Consider the heavens,
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash
PS – N.T. Wright is someone who writes and speaks about the expanse of God and the ways in which God is mindful of us. On October 10, the course WMN102 N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian, a Wesley Academy course, begins. If you haven’t read that book, you should! And, maybe take the course?
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Lisa is the Director of Online Education for the Institute for Discipleship, overseeing the ministries of BeADisciple.com. Lisa completed a Master’s degree in Christian Ministry from Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, in May of 2006.
She is the mother of three children, and currently, “Mimi” to four grandbabies. Lisa teaches the instructor training course, Lay Servants as Christian Transformational Leaders, and other courses as needed, and provides technical assistance for instructors and learners for every IFD course.
