Psalm 8

At the beginning of this study I saw for the first time some order to the placing of these songs.  

I wonder, though about the placement of all of them.  Our current hymnals have some semblance of order, with songs grouped by theme for the most part.  I suppose there may be some of that in this book, but then you get one like this psalm,  which seems to have been misplaced if you look at things by theme.  

Psalm 8 is placed in the middle of a group of lament psalms, which all express emotions opposite of praise.  The Psalmist usually opens the psalm with praise, but then lets loose with some raw emotion.  

Psalm 6 and 7 were laments, and those immediately following 8 are laments, but here, in the middle, we find a wonderful praise song.  

It has been my experience in life that people have trouble expressing both good, and bad; positive and negative; joy and sorrow, etc., at the same time in life.  Maybe not in the same moment, but in the same season of life.  For instance, thinking it a bad thing to feel joy and gladness at any time while mourning the death of a loved one.  

I recall the Dean of Women at the Bible college I attended who would not allow a frown on your face.  If she saw you with a frown, or anything but a gleaming smile, she would reprimand you for not being joyful.  I used to think that hogwash.  Would she have said that to Jesus as He wept over Jerusalem?  Or to David when he was swimming in his tears?  Or to Peter when he wept bitterly over denying Jesus? 

 I think both are acceptable.   We can know deep, deep sorrow, and experience abiding joy at the same time.......and there is nothing wrong with expressing both.  

David knew this well, and here, smack in the middle of his laments, he breaks into song about the majesty of God.  

He is the creator of the universe, and uses the weak to express His strength.    So great is His creation....so magnificent......yet He is mindful of us.   I am reminded of Isaiah 40, where he speaks of the nations being but drops in a bucked, and we like grasshoppers before the God who stretched out the heavens and calls out the sun, moon, and stars each day.  He 'sits above the circle of the earth' raising up and taking down kingdoms and helping His people.  

He has given us dominion over this earth to tend and keep it.  

Indeed, His Name is majestic in all the earth! 

Father, help me more and more to be able to express a clear and abiding joy in the midst of deep sorrow and troubled times.  May I remember Whose I am, and the course of history as You have prescribed it.  

May I always hide in the shadow of Your wings for comfort and refuge.