Today’s Devotional
When was the last time something stopped you mid-sentence? Not startled you, not frightened you, but left you standing still because what you were looking at was so much larger than the words you had ready for it?
The psalmist who wrote Psalm 104 was not performing. Read the line again: “Lord my God, you are very great.” That word, “very,” is almost childlike. It is the kind of word a person reaches for when the sophisticated ones have failed. Theologians have spent centuries building careful language for God’s attributes, and this poet, mid-breath, grabbed the simplest word on the shelf. He grabbed it because he was not composing. He was responding. Something he saw, something he recognized about God in that moment, overwhelmed his vocabulary. Splendor and majesty are the words that follow, but “very great” is where the real weight lives, because “very great” is the sound of someone who has run out of better options and does not care.
Most of us have sung praise lyrics hundreds of times. We have read doxologies, recited creeds, closed our eyes during worship songs and meant it, mostly. But meaning it mostly is a specific kind of distance. The psalmist here is not mostly anything. He is fully staggered. The difference between routine praise and genuine awe is whether the greatness of God has actually landed on you today, in this room, with your particular tiredness and your particular Tuesday.
Time to reflect
The psalmist’s awe was not rehearsed. Sit with that for a moment.
- When did your praise last come from being genuinely staggered, rather than from knowing it was time to praise?
- What part of God’s character have you flattened into a familiar phrase you no longer actually hear?
- If you could not use any worship lyric or memorized prayer, what would you say to God about his greatness right now, in your own raw words?
- Where in the last week did you see something beautiful or enormous and move past it without stopping?
Prayer Of The Day
God, we confess that we have praised you out of rhythm more than out of wonder. We have said the right words at the right times, and somewhere along the way the words became wallpaper. We stopped seeing what the psalmist saw. Forgive us for making your greatness small enough to fit inside our schedules. Open our eyes again. Let us be the kind of people who stand still when we recognize you, who reach for clumsy words because the polished ones have stopped being enough. Teach us to mean it when we say you are great, not because we should, but because we have seen it fresh. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
Strengthening Faith
Praise that comes alive starts with seeing something clearly enough to be moved by it.
- Step outside at some point today and look at one thing in the sky, the ground, or the horizon for a full sixty seconds without reaching for your phone. Say one sentence to God about what you see.
- Read Psalm 104:1-9 slowly, aloud if you can. Notice which image of God’s power surprises you most, and write that single image on a piece of paper you carry in your pocket.
- Replace one worship song or playlist you normally listen to with complete silence during a drive or walk. Pay attention to what surfaces when the soundtrack stops.
- Tell someone today, face to face, about one specific thing that recently struck you as beautiful or astonishing. Use your own words, not a quote.
- Pick one phrase you say regularly in prayer or worship that has become automatic. Retire it for one week. Find a different way to say the same thing, even if it sounds less polished.
- Before you eat your next meal, pause long enough to notice the colors on your plate. Praise is sometimes just the discipline of seeing what is already in front of you.
Today Wisdom
Splendor does not dim. Eyes adjust. The psalmist’s “very great” was the sound of someone whose eyes had readjusted, suddenly, after a long season of low light. Praise returns when sight does. The greatness was never the thing that left.
