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24 How many are your works, Lord!

In wisdom you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,

teeming with creatures beyond number—

living things both large and small.

26 There the ships go to and fro,

and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

 

27 All creatures look to you

to give them their food at the proper time.

28 When you give it to them,

they gather it up;

when you open your hand,

they are satisfied with good things.

29 When you hide your face,

they are terrified;

when you take away their breath,

they die and return to the dust.

30 When you send your Spirit,

they are created,

and you renew the face of the ground.

 

31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever;

may the Lord rejoice in his works—

32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,

who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

 

33 I will sing to the Lord all my life;

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,

as I rejoice in the Lord.

 

This is a joyous hymn praising God as the wise creator and sustainer of all life. It highlights the vastness of creation, the dependence of all creatures on divine provision, and the joy of existence, concluding with a personal pledge to praise God and a desire for divine delight in creation.

It glides from a description of God’s first acts of creation to a description of God’s care for God’s world and everything in it. It could be easy to think of God as perhaps creating the world but then having nothing to do with it afterwards. By contrast, Psalm 104 views God as vigorously and intimately involved in caring for what God so lovingly and wisely created.

I am always amazed by the wisdom of the Old Testament and how their writings are still so inciteful. Just think about how much more we know about God’s “works” than the psalmist did. After all, he didn’t have microscopes with which to peer into the minutest corners of God’s creation. The psalmist didn’t have a Hubble Telescope with which to stare into the farthest

corners of God’s creation. He didn’t even have undersea apparatus with which to peek into the ocean’s deepest depths. So, it may be fair to suggest that we have even more reason than the psalmist did to “Praise the Lord, O my soul.”

Holy Father, Creator and sustainer of creation, I pray that Your glory will endure forever. I love to explore Your creation, and I thank you for all of the opportunities You have provided for me.

Donna DeMauro

donna@demaurostl.com

 

Prayer Concern – I pray that all people get out to enjoy God’s creation