Magnificent

By Stephen Leonard

“Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works, I will meditate.” Psalm 145:3-5

14,110 feet high, Pike’s Peak looms over the metropolis of Colorado Springs like a guardian of this fair city, sporting beautifully tree lined broad avenues laid out with precision. This spectacular mountain stands all alone on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, stretching from New Mexico to Canada, and is singularly visible from far out on the eastern plains stretching for hundreds of miles.

It is but a glimmer of the magnificence of the One who designed and made the earth on which she pierces the clouds. This was what I looked on everyday growing up, where on her top “America the Beautiful” was inspired and written.

This is but a mere microcosm of the huge garden called Earth, which is inhabited by numberless multi-hued birds, animals of every size and description, a panoply of all intricate shapes and brilliant colors of sea creatures in palaces of coral, and observed in awe and wonder by a population of men, women, and children made in the image of the Creator of it all. It is but one tiny spot on a spectacularly unique planet, set in a wondrous, vast universe of planets, stars, suns, moons, and space.

There are not enough words to describe the magnificent creation in which we have been set by our loving Triune God. All of what we see and even what we cannot see in the infinitely vast Universe has been designed and made by this Almighty God. Its sheer beauty surpasses any and all imagination, for in our finiteness we do not even approach the wonder of the infinite Creator God. We simply cannot fathom it.

Vain attempts by man to design a “greater creation” than what God has already given us, such as imagined science fiction worlds, fall unbelievably short of what God has actually Himself designed and made. You can never surpass it, out-design it, out-color it, or out-think it. Such is sheer foolishness. God is greater than anything man can envision. So why try?

The only response which makes any sense in all of this are the words of Psalm 150: “Let everything which has breath praise the Lord.” All that we are, all that we have, calls out for one all-consuming deed from you and I, and that is that we worship, praise, and adore the God who has lavished His love upon us.

As you spend time in the outdoors this summer, looking on and enjoying His astounding creation, direct your thoughts and focus to the One who made it all. With a humble heart of gratitude personally give lavish thanks to Him and commit yourself to serve Him with all of your being. He is surely worthy of your utmost praise and devotion!

Encouragement

“All you fruitful trees and cedars, all you hills and mountains high, creeping things and beasts and cattle, birds that in the heavens fly, kings of earth, and all you people, princes great, earth judges all; praise his name, young men and maidens, aged men and children small. Let them praises give Jehovah, for his name alone is high, and his glory is exalted, and his glory is exalted, and his glory is exalted far above the earth and sky.”

(3rd verse of musical rendition of Psalm 148 “Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah” in “Bible Songs Hymnal,” 1927)