Conspicuous Enough

Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind.

✙ Ps 104:1-3 ✙

The scriptures tell us to make no graven image of God, which means we're not to create statues of God or try to paint God's portrait. But the word pictures the psalms paint are sometimes overwhelmingly beautiful. Psalm 104 opens with the same words as the one before it. But whereas Psalm 103 goes on to talk about God's steadfast love and tenderness when dealing with people, Psalm 104 goes in a very different direction: first describing not God, but God's garments, God's dwelling, and God's transport.

Calvin said that, "although God is invisible, yet his glory is conspicuous enough." And I guess, in its own dry way, this sums up what I want to say. I cannot see God, but I can see the glory of God. I am therefore never without
a reason to glorify the Creator of the glory that surrounds me.

We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting. To thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens, and all the powers therein. To thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry: Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory...

✙ Opening lines of the Te Deum

Arvo Pärt