PRAISING GOD FOR HIS WONDERS
Watching the US Tennis Open while thinking about Wonders of God gave me an idea. Squeeze the tennis ball with one hand as best you can. The pressure exerted on the ball is about the same amount of pressure the heart exerts to pump blood through the body. The heart pumps on average 100k times a day, 35 million a year, 2.5 billion during a normal lifetime.
Your body has about six quarts of blood that circulate through your body three times every minute. Over the course of a day, your blood travels 12,000 miles through the aorta - about the diameter of a garden hose - and through capillaries that are so small it takes ten capillaries to equal the thickness of a human hair.
Your heart does its amazing work without your awareness of it. Yet God knows. The God of All Wonders, who created the complexities of a universe full of 300 billion stars, created our bodies with such finesse and detail that researchers have only scratched the surface of understanding how the body works. Wow!
May the very thought of having been created by the God of All Wonders motivate us to spend time praising God for all His wonders!
In addition to the wonders of a human body, natural wonders have always fascinated me. One of my life’s objectives has been to see all the natural wonders of North America. Although my dream has come true only partially, every one of those wonders is still there for me, or anyone who has eyes and ears, to see and hear.
The Grand Canyon, for example, is a sight to behold, and produces sounds of music to the attentively listening ear. As I stood at the rim of the canyon, looked down, then up, and all around, I remembered the psalmist’s acclamation,, “When I consider your heavens, Lord, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?” The 89th Psalm speaks of praising God for His wonders – Psalm 89:1-8 . . .
Ethan the Ezrahite connected God’s wonders with His faithful love to make the point that there is no greater proof . . . evidence . . . declaration of the Lord’s stability and steadfastness than the wonders of heaven and earth.
The reason given for praising God was the Lord’s “emunah” - Hebrew word translated variously as “faithful love”, “great love”, “steadfast love”, “mercies”. Appearing 247 times in the Old Testament, the word was used to extol the virtue of praising God for His wonders. And I want my attitude toward God’s faithful love as seen on earth and in the heavens, to be like that of the third stone cutter in this story:
A sojourner came upon 3 individuals working with stone. Curious as to what they were doing, the traveler approached the first and asked, “What are you doing with these stones?” Without hesitation, the worker replied, “I am a stone cutter and I am cutting stones”.
The traveler approached the second worker and asked the same question, and the worker replied, “I am a stone cutter and I am cutting stones to earn money to support my family”. Then the traveler approached the third: “What are you doing with these stones?” Thinking about it for a few moments, the worker stared at the stone, and the chisel in his hand, then turned to the traveler and replied, “I am a stone cutter and I am building a cathedral for God’s glory!”
Think about it! What do you see in the sky? What did you see when you stood in awe and stared perhaps in disbelief at the natural wonder displayed before your eyes as if etched on the huge canvas of a Master Artist”?
If you are thinking, you see what the psalmist saw! You see God’s promise of His everlasting faithfulness as displayed in His wonders! A truth established in the heavenly realm, but we humans can see only a tiny fraction of it all!
Not too long ago, NASA’s multi-million-dollar satellite released a report to scientists back here on earth. Dr. Leonard Susskind, a Stanford University physicist issued a statement in which he said that “normal matter, the stuff of people and planets, makes up 4% of all the matter and energy in the universe. So all the wonders we are capable of seeing (visibly and microscopically) are at most a tiny dot in an unimaginable large sea of space and time.”
The psalmist, who had no telescope, yet was amazed by the awesomeness of God’s wonders, was humbled by a thought that struck him and brought him back down to earth. He remembered God’s covenant promise with His people. Think about it! The LORD God, maker of heaven and earth and all that therein exists - in heaven and on earth, both heavenly beings and human beings - established a relationship with His people - from the beginning of the human race until now, for as long as life exists on this planet, and thereafter continues to exist in heavenly places!
His relationship with His people means He knows each and every one of us! And He has revealed the authenticity of His promise to His people by His wonders – the wonder of it all being that He loves me, cares for me, and keeps His promise of faithful love, even when things do not go well. Think of it this way:
“God has not promised skies always blue, flower-strewn pathways all our lives through. God has not promised sun without rain, joy without sorrow, peace without pain. But God has promised strength for our day, rest for our labor, and light for our way. Yes, God has promised grace for our trials, help from above, unfailing sympathy, and undying love.”
Folks, the biggest confirmation of God’s faithfulness is the fact that He still perseveres with us despite our mistakes . . . errors of judgment . . . sins.
ONLY the LORD God is faithful and true . . . merciful too . . . will have mercy and abundantly pardon. We therefore are called to be faithful and true . . . happy.
God’s promise is (89:15): “Blessed (happy) are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence, O Lord.”
Thomas Chisholm learned the hard way to acclaim the LORD. Thomas at no time in his life had it easy. In 1866, he was born in a rustic long cabin in Kentucky, became sick and was unable to go to school. However, he educated himself to the extent that he began to teach other children of poor folks at an early age.
Thomas was converted during a revival and became a Christian. At the age of 36, he began to pastor a small church, but soon had to be confined to bed due to the debilitating nature of his illness. Yet he was not deterred. He began writing sacred poems in which he praised the wonders and faithfulness of the LORD his God who Thomas acclaimed as his companion . . . strength . . . “bright hope”.
Before he died, though bed-ridden, Chisholm composed 1,200 poems, one of which, in 1923, William Runyan set to music – “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”!
As we make ourselves more and more aware of God’s greatness, and think of God’s wonders as reminders of His faithful love, let us acclaim God’s marvelous grace by saying to ourselves, “Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”
And, if you are of a mind to, and feel led to do so, acclaim to those around you, especially as you gaze upon any one of His many wonders, “Great is God’s faithfulness unto me . . . unto thee . . . unto all those who love the Lord!” Amen.
