Psalm 104:14-26 NKJV
14 He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the service of man,
That he may bring forth food from the earth,
15 And wine that makes glad the heart of man,
Oil to make his face shine,
And bread which strengthens man’s heart.
16 The trees of the Lord are full of sap,
The cedars of Lebanon which He planted,
17 Where the birds make their nests;
The stork has her home in the fir trees.
18 The high hills are for the wild goats;
The cliffs are a refuge for the rock badgers.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons;
The sun knows its going down.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
In which all the beasts of the forest creep about.
21 The young lions roar after their prey,
And seek their food from God.
22 When the sun rises, they gather together
And lie down in their dens.
23 Man goes out to his work
And to his labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all.
The earth is full of Your possessions—
25 This great and wide sea,
In which are innumerable teeming things,
Living things both small and great.
26 There the ships sail about;
There is that Leviathan
Which You have made to play there.
Maybe you’ve seen a picture of our enormous Milky Way galaxy. Sometimes people will draw an arrow on such a picture, pointing to the pinprick of light that is our solar system, and the “pale blue dot” that is our planet. “You are here,” they say. “Do you feel small yet?”
But today’s Psalm gives us a better perspective. Instead of feeling small, we should feel immensely large, because God, the Creator of all, not only pays attention to us, but is graciously focused on us. We tend to think of the grass growing, for example, or of the rising and setting of sun and moon as automatic processes governed by the laws of nature. But this is a worldly way to think of our world. The truth is, God is intimately involved with His creation and with the earth in particular. He not only created the world but also sustains and preserves it, and He does it with intentional, fatherly care.
He “causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man.” God works through all the biological processes He created to make sure we have food to eat. And although we could live on basic, tasteless gruel, the Lord gives us so much more than that—wine, and oil, and bread, not only for our sustenance, but also for our enjoyment.
Why do the trees grow? So that the birds have somewhere safe to make their nests. Why are the hills there? So that the goats have a place to roam. Why are there cliffs? So that the rock badgers have a place to play. Why do sun and moon carry out their daily dance across the sky? Why do the seas exist? All for the benefit of man and beast.
But the most remarkable thing about it is that God still does this for us even after our race fell into sin, resulting in this creation being cursed. Still the Lord preserves us with fatherly goodness. If God does all this for a world that is destined for destruction because of mankind’s sin, we can expect that, in the new creation that is about to be revealed, He will do infinitely more for us whom He has adopted as His children through faith in Christ Jesus. Let us pray: O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all. For this, we, Your creatures, give You thanks, through Christ our Lord. Amen.