Psalms 65-67 and 69-70
I wrote this devotion with Ps. 65 in mind but specifically v.5-13. Go ahead and read it now if you haven’t already.
Everybody has their hobbies and one of mine is woodworking. It’s super tactile and when I am woodworking, I have a kind of solitude. In a crazy technology driven era it is just really nice to do something physical and focused. It allows me to focus completely on one thing. No distractions, just wood and my hands and tools. My tools aren’t seeking my attention and neither is the wood. One of the other parts of woodworking that I love is the design element. Taking different materials and being able to think about how to put them together to get something that is designed well for its purpose but also holds a beauty. One of my favorite things that I have designed is a coffee table for my girlfriend. I made it as a Christmas present and definitely spent a ton of time (read: too much time) making it. Haha. I had a great time doing it though. I originally was just going to make it out of a wormy pine but I realized I didn’t have enough materials to make it the dimensions I wanted to. Through a little bit of problem solving and some design though I decided to make it out of two different types of wood. I had some beautiful red oak that I thought would work perfectly. I laid the oak and pine in an alternating pattern to make the table the size that I wanted. At the end of the process I was really happy with what I had made for her and in my opinion, it is really beautiful.
This new hobby has also allowed me to grow a deeper appreciation for how things are designed. This includes many types of design from something like how businesses are structured to the architecture in homes. People have designed some really awesome things. I think about how they designed the pyramids with no modern construction equipment to the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. There have been a couple failures, too, like the sinking city of Venice and the leaning tower of Pisa. Maybe Italians aren’t the best architects. Haha. Too much passion and not enough structural integrity.
Some of the designs I have seen in the world made by humans are really impressive but the designs of God are truly mind boggling to me. The more I think about how God designed things in creation the more amazed I am. There are a ton of different things to consider too. All too often we can simply consider the earth and how beautiful it is. However, God’s design goes so far beyond that. God in 6 days did some pretty incredible things. Some of the things that really put me in awe are how he designed the water cycle, which allows the earth to receive water all over the land. If you think about water without the process of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation it would just stay in the lowest place it could run to. God designed that. He designed it so that all the earth would be watered as in Psalm 65.10.
He also designed the concept of gravity and set its force in just the right way. It is perfectly tared so that we are neither crushed to death by its pull or float around with nothing to tether us to the ground. God designed that. This gravity is also the same force which draws the water to flow in beautiful streams and rivers to a lower point in the earth.
He also happened to design the earth in such a way that it is self-sustaining. The earth requires absolutely nothing from humans except not to harm it. Haha. It has been around thousands of years without us doing anything to maintain it. It has been and will be. God designed it that way.
He designed the process of photosynthesis. Through photosynthesis plants take the energy from the Sun and convert it into food which the plant then uses to grow and sustain itself. God designed that.
Oh yeah, and it just so happens that we take that plant and eat, or preferably take that plant and feed it to another animal and eat that animal. Haha. God designed that
Oh yeah and the Sun, we missed that one. God designed it so that the earth was the perfect distance from the Sun. Too far away and we would be a block of ice and too close and we would be a ball of fire. God designed that.
He designed the seasons by making the earth rotate around the sun in such a way that the hemispheres received longer and shorter periods of sunlight. Thereby, allowing us to have beautiful white snow on the ground in February for most people, or if you are in New York, in May, and also get to experience the warm summer days and plants growing all around. God designed that.
You may be saying, I get it – God designed it all. For me it all screams of his glory, might, and his love for us that we would get to experience something that he designed so beautifully. This all leads me to a point of awe. An awe of all creation. My heart’s desire is to always have something to praise God for and something to keep me in awe of Him. Sometimes when I am looking for something I go to God’s creation and I can admire the beauty of his design and the deep level of care that He put into all of it. He did so for his glory. I am so thankful that I get to experience all of it, that he allows me to use his beautiful creation and that it provides for me.
Hope you guys have a great day back to work and really enjoy the day that God has given you to rejoice in.
Daniel Wall
Today’s Bible reading can be read or listened to at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+65-67%2C+69-70&version=NIV
Tomorrow’s reading will be 2 Samuel 11-12 and 1 Chronicles 20 as we continue on the 2020 Chronological Bible Reading Plan
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