What Is Man? What a God!
Scripture Reading — Psalm 8
When I consider your heavens ... what is man that you are mindful of him ... ? Psalm 8:3-4
It humbles me to walk into an office of the bank where I worked before becoming a pastor. Fourteen years later, no one even recognizes me. Any record of the work I did is now hidden deep in a dusty corner of the bank’s archives. Who would know I ever worked there? What am I?
On the night he wrote Psalm 8, David may have had similar feelings of insignificance. Perhaps as he looked up at the night sky, he saw the moon and the array of stars, and the magnificence of what he saw made him wonder why God would bother to care about tiny human beings on the surface of the earth.
We who live 3,000 years after David may echo his observations with even greater humility. Modern astronomy has informed us that the universe God created is far more vast than David could have guessed; this planet Earth is a mere microdot in the universe.
But as he looked out into the sky that night, David might also have heard the nighttime cries of infant children, as well as the sound of their contentment as they received the comfort of their parents’ touch. In a similar touch from God, David received again what no fleeting success as an earthly king could give him—the comfort and assurance that the God who created the universe cares also for each person as his own child.
Creator God, so great and mighty, thank you for showing your greatness and might in the midst of your tender, fatherly care for each of us. To your majestic name be all praise. Amen.
About the author — Fred Bultman
Fred Bultman began a “second career” as a pastor in 1997, after a first career in the banking business. He served as pastor to congregations in the U.S. and Canada. In retirement, he continues to enjoy sharing in the ministry of the churches in and around his home in Fremont, Michigan.
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