October, 2018 – O Lord, Our Lord, How Majestic is Your Name!
In my study in the Psalms – I mean, a verse-by-verse study of the Psalms (it has been three months and I’m only up to chapter 20) – I have been impressed with how overwhelmingly impressed the Psalmist David was of God’s strength and might and power. And how many times he refers to Him as his Rock. When I think of all the rocks I have ever seen, there is a particularly unique one in Red Beach, Maine. It is in an area where my boys (when they were young), and I referred to as ‘the Rocks’. We loved going to this place, having a picnic and then climbing down the cliff to the shore which was completely covered with Rubik Cube-sized rocks. No nice sandy beach at this place. We walked those rocks all day, collecting ‘washed glass’ (beach glass) – looking for crabs, jellyfish and other sea fauna that had washed in with the tide.
That particular rock – the unique one – on that shore I’m thinking of was (and is) a more magnificent, grand, and imposing mass of solid mineral material than others I have seen. It sat about three feet high and was about 12×14 feet in diameter – completely flat on top.
One day, long after my boys were grown up, I went to ‘the Rocks’ by myself to reminisce and shed a few tears thinking of the wonderful times we had all had there together. For the longest time, I stood on the edge of the cliff looking out over the St. Croix River where it floods into the Atlantic Ocean. Deciding that the sixteen-foot tide hadn’t completely rolled back in again, I climbed down the side of the cliff, and set out across the rocks. As I approached ‘my’ rock – the uniquely magnificent and grand one – it looked like a platform to me. I climbed on top of it and stood. Just stood – staring out at the massive and powerful waves. I became so in awe of God’s majesty that on that ‘platform/stage’, I began to sing to the top of my lungs, “O Lord, Our Lord, How Majestic is Your Name in All the Earth” (a fabulous old song by Sandi Patty). The time spent there was so majestic with the waves pounding in with the tide so loudly that I could barely even hear myself – let alone if there were any folks in the couple of little houses a couple of hundred yards behind me. I kind of prayed they couldn’t hear me because the wind would have carried my pitch all over the place with such a cacophonous sound that I could imagine their wondering who the crazy lady was singing so badly on ‘that rock’.
Well, no one stuck their head out the door, so I guess I was safe. It wouldn’t have mattered. I felt in my heart, my mind, my spirit just a little of David’s expression of his thoughts – about His Rock. You, Lord, ARE my Rock! Here are some others in the Bible that expressed their trust in the Rock —
Deuteronomy 3.24 – ‘For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as Yours?’ – Moses
I Samuel 2.2 – ‘There is no One besides You, nor is there any rock like our God. – Hannah
Psalm 86.8 – ‘There is no One like You among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like Yours.’ – David
Deuteronomy 3.24 – ‘For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as Yours?’ – Moses
Jeremiah 10.6 – ‘There is none like You, O Lord; You are great, and great is Your name in might.’ – Jeremiah
Isaiah 46.9 – ‘For I am God, and there is no other, I am God, and there is no one like Me.’ – Our great, all-powerful, and majestic Rock, God