Decorations

By Paul Gauche

Today’s Word: ‘DECORATIONS’ as in… the stars above are God’s heavenly decorations, we are God’s decorations right here!

On a clear night, go outside and look up at the sky. Let yourself relax under this blanket of stars. Try to imagine how many stars there are and how far away they are. Now focus on the moon or some of the brightest stars you can see.

…Can you find the Milky Way?

…Can you see the Big Dipper?

…Are you able to pick out Orion?

Look at the clusters of some dimmer stars. What happens when you look right at them? Do they twinkle? Do they disappear? What makes them shine? Can you imagine how they got there? Now close one eye and hold your hand up between your open eye and the stars. “Hold” a star or the moon between your thumb and index finger and imagine God putting that moon or that star right there as a decoration for us to enjoy. Imagine God taking a handful of stars and flinging them across the sky letting them land where they did.

Psalm 8 is about God decorating the heavens…and the earth!

“GOD, brilliant Lord, I look up in wonder at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your hand-made sky-jewelry, moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden’s dawn light. You put us in charge of your handcrafted world, repeated to us your Genesis-charge, made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps. GOD, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.”

God has created you to be a decoration in the world; to bring beauty and grace to the planet, to bring light and life to the world!

Close your eyes again and say to yourself, “I am God’s decoration!”

(With much gratitude to my canoe buddy, Greg Ash, for his spectacular photography! Follow him on Instagram at gregash28 for more amazing images of the aurora borealis)

#100days50words

Paul Gauche is the Pastor of Life Transitions at Prince of Peace. His posts are part of his #100days50works project, where be blogs about a different word each day. You can follow his project on Instagram (@pgauche), or on his blog, Thriving Rhythms.