Showers of Blessings

July 28, 2015

Showers of Blessings

You make springs pour water into the ravines,

    so streams gush down from the mountains.

You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home,

    and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor.

Psalm 104:10,13

Down through the ages people have stood in awe of nature. John Muir was one of those people. He explored what is now Yosemite National Park, and urged that the area be preserved as a national treasure because it was such a magnificent display of the beauty of God’s creation. Psalm 104 calls us to take time in life to observe the wonder of God’s creation. That is pretty easy for me as I get to observe every day the handiwork of the Lord where “Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed” (Psalm 104:8).

I believe the psalmist wants us to go beyond God’s initial acts of creation. The psalmist wants us to consider that God created . . . and is still creating. God created the very first sun rise and He created the magnificent sunrise I saw this morning. God not only created all things, God is proactively caring for His creation. God didn’t just create the first tomato; He also created the tomatoe that will soon fit nicely between two slices of bread for my lunch.

The Apostle Paul reached this same conclusion when he wrote of the supremacy of Christ, “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together” (Colossians 1:17, emphasis mine). What happens when Christ stops holding all creation together? The psalmist answers that in Psalm 104: 29-30 (NRSV):

“When you hide your face, they are dismayed;

   when you take away their breath, they die

   and return to their dust.

When you send forth your spirit, they are created;

   and you renew the face of the ground..”

If the psalmist had been with me this morning as I stood in awe of His lofty mountain grandeur and observed the hawks soaring across the valley below, he would have pointed out that God created those hawks. God also created the air currents that were keeping them aloft; and God created the trees where they nest; and because “the Lord takes pleasure in all he has made” (v. 31b), the Lord is smiling as he watches over His creations playing in the air; and He is smiling as He watches me standing in awe.

“I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.

    I will praise my God to my last breath!

May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,

    for I rejoice in the Lord.

Let all that I am praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!”

Psalm 104:33-34, 35b

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.