Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours.
I Chronicles 29:11
Some of you must know about the “weather rock.” If not, it’s a rock that hangs from a rope of a tripod along a road on Washington Island in Lake Michigan. For real! A sign is tacked up next to the “weather rock” that tells how to use the rock.
If the rock is wet, it’s raining. If the rock feels cold, it’s cold. If the rock is white, it’s snowing or has snowed. The sign continues on and on and at the end it reads: “The wonderful thing about this weather rock is that it’s not affected by the weather”—which suggests that we human beings are unlike the rock as we are very much affected by the weather and by our environment and by all of God’s creation.
Because we in this world are affected by cold and heat and plan our activities around sunshine and storm (which might be symbolism for times of prosperity and disaster), the words of an Old Testament text that I’ve been studying may be comforting words to us all, as the writer addresses the LORD God: “All that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours.”
He makes that claim because he believes that God is the Creator of all things. Everything that is, that has being, exists with His knowledge and by His wisdom (which also equates to His greatness, power, glory, etc.). And because God loves us, we are given to believe that all things created are for our good.
But sin has corrupted all things. For real! Sin has ruined the goodness of God’s creation. But sin has not destroyed God’s love for all people: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Of course you recognize the Words of God’s Good News for us in John 3:16.
God loves us, as it is written. He cares for us and saves us as it is attested in His Son, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen—the Son of the Living God.
He knows that we are not “weather rocks” unaffected by the storms and troubles of this life living in this fallen world. Therefore God gives us words of comfort in the Holy Scriptures—words like those of Romans 8: “In all things God works for the good of those who love Him…. He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?”
Scripture contains many such comforting texts and these are the words of the almighty God who created all things and consistently governs all things: “As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.”
God loves us with a Father’s perfect love and for that reason alone, we praise Him for the comfort of His power which He uses out of love for our eternal good. And it’s for real that we declare: “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours.”
Each week a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Reverend Dean Rudloff, pastor of Life in Christ Lutheran Church, which currently meets at the Cook County Community Center, Sunday at 9 a.m.
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