Day 39: The Sky Keeps Telling
Read: Psalm 19:1–6
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
— Psalm 19:1 (ESV)
Reflect
"The heavens declare." In Hebrew the verb is mesapperim, "are recounting" — telling the story, item by item. It comes from the same family as the Hebrew word for a book.
And the form of the verb is ongoing. Not "the heavens told once," but "the heavens are telling," continuously. Every sunrise is another line. Every night sky is another page. The sky has not stopped talking since the day it was made.
Then the psalm says something strange. The sky does not speak in human words or in any one language (v. 3), and yet "their voice goes out through all the earth" (v. 4). The message needs no words, and it still reaches everywhere.
What is the sky telling? "The glory of God." The word for glory, kavod, comes from a root meaning "heavy." The heavens are announcing how weighty, how substantial, how real God is.
Out here on the prairie, we have more sky than most people. It is easy to stop seeing it. But it has been preaching over your fields and your roof every day of your life.
Across Scripture
Psalm 8 looks at the same sky and asks, "what is man that you are mindful of him?" (Psalm 8:3–4). Paul says God's power and nature "have been clearly perceived… in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:20), and he borrows verse 4 to describe the gospel going out to the world (Romans 10:18). Then Psalm 19 turns at verse 7 from the sky to the written Word. The same God speaks in two voices — one wordless, one written.
Sit With It
Go outside for one minute today without your phone. Let the sky keep telling. What does it tell you about the God who made it?
Pray
Let me hear what the heavens are saying.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.