By Dan Schaeffer
It’s so easy to feel insignificant. We aren’t the best, the strongest, the smartest, the richest, the luckiest, the prettiest; we’re insignificant in a world that worships significance.
And nothing makes us feel smaller than something much bigger than ourselves.
One night David found himself sitting outside under a canopy of brilliant stars. His world, for the moment, was quiet and still. He was a king, a warrior, a musician, a poet, a hero, and yet as he looked at that beautiful scene he felt … insignificant.
It’s the same feeling so many have felt over the years as they gazed at the moon and the stars at night in quietness. Yet, rather than be depressed by this feeling, David, in Psalm eight, suddenly discovered through God his real significance. And in joy and wonder … he wrote this psalm; a psalm which showed him his significance in a huge universe of which he was, admittedly, just a tiny speck.
The Glory of God
David realized that if we are to have any true significance in life—it must come from God—all other forms of human significance are temporary. Popularity, wealth, skill, strength, all fade over time till we die and all our earthly glory is lost. So David writes …
“O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease” (Psalm 8:1-2, New American Standard Bible, 1995).
In Psalms 19:1 we read “The heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands ….” Paul, in Romans 1:20, writes, “For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.” The canvas of earth and the heavens display God’s fingerprints. They are unmistakable.
In response, David writes, “How majestic is Your name in all the earth!” To praise the painting is to first praise the artist. And God is to be praised “in all the earth.” In David’s day gods and goddesses were considered local deities, each having a geographical area where they reigned supreme. But Yahweh was not a local deity, He ruled over the whole Cosmos.
Everyone, no matter your beliefs, has had opportunity to look at the stars and galaxies in all their awe and grandeur and get a deep sense of the transcendent; that there is something much greater than mankind and his puny problems and concerns. When anyone marvels at this scene, they are actually experiencing and sensing God’s greatness whether they understand it or not.
Since God created what we see, we should spend time reflecting upon it. The sun, moon, galaxies, Milky Way, oceans, mountains, lakes, rivers, meadows, flowers, sunrises, sunsets, and all the creatures of earth … all began in the mind of God.
Each artist reveals a part of themselves in their art. The beauty we see is what was within them. It’s the same with God. We see, in creation, a small part of God’s beauty. The glory of man does not begin with man, it begins with God.
“Glory to Man”
Yet, the unimaginable thing is that God has given us glory—we don’t have to earn it. It’s part of our creation—as his image bearers.
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas” (Psalm 8:3-8).
As David looked at creation, he realized that he, too, was the creation of God. Picture an artist sculpting or painting with their hands and we get an idea of God in the midst of his creation. Can we sense God’s joy as he created things of such beauty and complexity?
Occasionally, as an author, I will write something that, to my mind, is actually quite beautiful. Words are my medium, ideas are my paint, a paragraph or article, sermon or book is my art. Most of the time good writing is merely a combination of understanding grammar, literary timing, and reading a lot.
But every once in a while you move from writing to art, using words like colors, mixing them carefully and positioning them on the proper canvas and are amazed at the result.
Beauty always comes from some place.
Before the sculpture, there was the sculptor. Before the painting there was the artist. Before the song there was the musician. Before the novel there was the author. The creation we see is “the work of His fingers.”
“The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; ….” That the same God who created the heavens, the moon and stars cares for him is as unimaginable to David as if the President of the United States called a random single mother and said, “I heard that you lost your job and are having a hard time. I’ve arranged for a new job for you that will more than meet your needs and your families.”
She would think: why does he care so much about me when there are millions more in my situation?” But she would still be grateful and happy. The President of the United States cared enough about me to call and help me personally.
The eternal artist has hung his work on the gallery of planet earth, and then flung more of his work into the heavens. And he illuminates his work with the sun by day and the moon by night. We need, as did David, to consider this. Think about it. Dwell on it. Because when you do you will ask, as did David …
“What is man that You take thought of him And the son of man that You care for him? … Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!”
David is just shaking his head here. Every part of God’s creation is beautiful and amazing, but in God’s mind, the crown jewel of his creation is man. Of all creation, only man was actually made in God’s image. For some reason, we were the crescendo of creation, not the beauty we see in nature.
While all of creation can reflect God’s glory—no other part bears it in themselves. Man has been crowned with glory and majesty because each one of us bears God’s image. We can think, plan, create, build, love, hate, strengthen, tear down—all things that no other part of God’s creation can do. We reflect his glory like the moon reflects the light of the sun—and in so doing we glorify God.
Glory and Majesty! Ironically, these words are normally used to describe God himself. Glory stresses dignity and importance, while majesty denotes splendor. We are not valuable to God because we are so useful to him. He values us whether we are productive or not.
For some reason, we are more precious to God than all the sunsets and sunrises that have ever graced our planet, than all the planets and stars combined. There is not a mountain range, a lake, ocean, or animal he values more than us. Our glory is a gift to us by virtue of God’s love for us.
In monarchies around the world and down through the centuries, people were crowned with royalty by virtue of their birth—not their accomplishments. So do we.
“You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas ….”
In the New Testament we see that man failed to rule over God’s creation properly. Yet God’s plan for mankind will ultimately be fulfilled … in Jesus; the perfect man, perfectly fit to rule and reign over all. God, who became a man, will rule forever, perfectly.
The God who needs nothing has created everything … for us. God doesn’t need a planet, or a moon, or stars, or a sun or galaxies or animals or fish. He doesn’t need water, oceans, precious stones, or gold. He needs nothing. We need all these things. God made all these for us! All the things that make life pleasant and beautiful were for us.
We have been taught to seek significance from what we can do, perform, build, create, and accomplish. Yet whatever significance we get from that will one day fade away. But the glory and majesty God has bestowed upon us will never fade.
The Glory of God
After David thought about all this, he returned to the beginning.
“O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:9).
The beginning of the search, and the end of the search for significance end in the same thing: praise to God! And maybe that’s what we need to do. As you think about this psalm and maybe later tonight, go outside. Look up. See all the beauty of nature and all the complex beauty God has made. And then pause—to remember—God cares for me more than all this creation he has made.
God would not trade you for a galaxy. There is not a scene of nature God has made that is more important to him than you are. One day he will wipe the creation slate clean and start over. Except for you. You he will keep. If you are in Christ.
“What is man that you take thought of Him?” It boggled David’s mind. How much more should our minds be boggled when we realize that God became a man and visited us in the form of a baby? And he came to enter our suffering, and eventually give his perfect life as an atonement for our own sinful lives.
Your search for significance will never be completely realized here on earth unless it is realized in Jesus Christ. You can never earn what God wants to give you. It’s a gift. It’s grace.
“O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!”
Dan Schaeffer is a retired minister and author of over 10 books and hundreds of articles.
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