The beauty of praying the psalms is that they connect our head and heart as we pray. They are not simply emotional outbursts (although that may be a part of some psalms). Likewise, they are not abstract points of doctrine disconnected from our everyday lives. Rather, the psalms give depth to our understanding of God while at the same time, give us words to express the deep feelings of our hearts.
Reflecting on the service as a whole today, I especially enjoyed watching children of all ages taking flowers to their mothers. The smiles were contagious! It was also a great joy to see Casen Bury baptized today. What a unique mother's day gift that was. Most of Casen's growing up years have been as the only child of a single mom. What a joy for Kelly to witness her husband, Kevin baptizing her son Casen into Christ. Kevin was baptized just last year and when I asked Casen whom he would like to baptize him he mentioned that he had been present for Kevin's baptism and that if Kevin could baptism him that would be extra special.
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Living in the city can be such a good thing for many reasons...lots of people to connect with, lots of places to minister too, and yes, the city lights.
When I used to drive home to Virginia, I'd pass through Memphis. If you haven’t seen Memphis at night you’re missing something spectacular! Crossing the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge the biggest sight is the Pyramid Arena, lit up as a beacon calling you across the Mississippi River. I haven’t driven through many cities in my life, but Memphis is one of my favorites, with Dallas in a close second, and of course Houston a home favorite.
Big lights and big buildings lit up in the night are nothing short of amazing; however, a few years ago (has it really been that long now?) Foundations took a little retreat up to Livingston, which was just the right amount of distance away from the burning city lights of Houston to see the majesty of the night sky. In recent memory, I’ve never witnessed stars that bright. Not back home, not in Iraq, not in Kuwait, never… and we had the best weather, no clouds! The only thought in my mind, while looking upward into the Milky Way was, “Wow…God made all this and I get to enjoy it?”
AS you called it, artificial lights can be spectacular. The big buildings and the flooding of neon is something really hard not to be amazed at, our own human ingenuity. But when compared to the majesty of the Milky Way…it seems kinda unfair! Trent and I stayed outside one night during our retreat for a long time, talking about stuff I can no longer recall, but I do remember the stars and just being simply dumbfounded by it all. And I guess that’s the big difference for me when comparing city lights with God’s lights. City lights are amazing but we know how they work, we can explain rudimentary how they function and even if we ourselves cannot recreate it, we understand it and grasp it. However, with the stars, science can give us a picture of how they exist, but we will never understand or grasp why they exist and we could never recreate a star…we can’t change a stars bulb! Not to mention the magnitude of their size and distance… stars are simply out of reach, yet flood a clear night’s sky.
Simply put, the simple action of star gazing, could be considered an act of worship.
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