My Significance
Last night, I translated these words from Psalm 8:
When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,And it struck me - what an amazing privilege to actually be able to read this in the original, to be able to understand something written over 2500 years ago. But how much more significant, to hear the psalmist's words and realize they apply to me today - who am I, Christian Cryder, that God actually cares for me?
The moon and the stars which you have put in place,
What is man, that you remember him?
The son of man, that you attend to him?
Here I am, a mere speck of dust in the midst of a seemingly infinite cosmos - I will come and go in a few years time without so much as a ripple in the big picture of things. I epitomize insignificance, and yet God takes a personal interest in me. He doesn't value me because I am significant in and of myself; his loving attention makes me significant in spite of myself.
The Psalms are filled with this kind of language, and I find it tremendously encouraging. We are personal beings, who serve a personal God, who encourages us to look at the majesty of creation and ask ourselves what that says about us.
posted by Pilgrim in Progress @ 5:03 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Christian,
I believe this is the basis for our interactions with all kinds of people.
As Eugene Peterson has said, no two snowflakes are the same; likewise no two people are the same, they are image bearers, even though fallen image bearers. Therefore, they are interesting in and of themselves; they have a story (before conversion surely a story of the fall) but an interesting story even so. I find when I have this genuine interest in others, it gives passport into their lives. Thanks for the post....
Hey Rich, nice to hear from you. I think your comments are right on the money. So many times, we try and find our significance in something outside of God - it's bad enough when we view ourselves that way, but it's even worse when we value others on that same basis. Learning to see the image of God in others, and to value them according to who they _are_, rather than based on what they _do_ (or what they bring to _me_) - learning to value others that way has a huge impact on how we treat them.
Great stuff, thanks for sharing!
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