True Awe

Holy, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.

Forgive us Lord, for I fear we have lost the awe due the Lord of tempests, fjords, canyons, and quasars. Too often we allow our devotion to be constrained by the glorified conference rooms in which we worship. As the PowerPoint clicks to the next slide in the popular worship song we forget that the God we address from our comfortable office chair holds the world in His hands and propels the wind and sea with His voice.

We forget that ancient man, confronted with your infinite nature and with your immense creation devoted his life and the life of his children's children to the building of cathedrals, temples, pagodas, and palaces dedicated to bloodthirsty false gods and demons. Yet we sit, smugly sipping our Starbucks, and wishing that the collection fund would go to better upholstery.

Forgive us. Forgive me.

I have forgotten that the night sky above my head is illumined by ten million nuclear explosions that you have named and carefully placed to speak your majesty until the day the universe ends. I do not call to mind the vast wastes of rock and tree that you have placed in perfect compositions to create landscapes of beauty that can only be captured and never reimagined by man. I overlook the wonder that is my own existence, that the simplest cells within my body are more perfectly engineered and crafted than the most extravagant robotic marvel of mankind.

In this democratic age, we remember what it is to serve a God of love and mercy, but we have forgotten what it is to fall down before the God of majesty and awe.

So capture our hearts. Let us peek behind the curtain and spy with shaking and terrified eyes the vast Crystal Sea, to hear the booming praise of the twenty four elders resonate in the murmuring throng of ten thousand redeemed souls from every tribe and tongue, worshipping ceaselessly as they honor The Lamb.

How can we sit in indolent and sleepy silence when our entire eternity is shaped by this one fact: that the Most High God reigns, and that He actually cares for and loves us.

Let the truth of your majesty pierce and take root in my heart. May my worship be deepened by my knowledge of how absolutely incomprehensible it is that one as great as you take notice of me and my needs. Glory be to your name.

All photos from my photostream, here.