Can beauty be terrifying? Well, if you don’t feel a tremor running up your back on a cold April morning on Lake George in the Sierra Mountains, then you better check your pulse, friend, because I have been up in the Sierras this time of year and I have been on Lake George in the early morning. At the far end of the lake is Crystal Crag, this big sheer cliff that rises from the lake like a stone buttress, it is awesome. I’ve seen the sun come up over that rocky fortress spilling into a beautiful bright blue sky. A ghost moon, tissue thin, clinging to the horizon and the pristine air. The shadows seem chiseled in black. And sounds on that lake carry an impossible distance. The clunk of oars from a far away rowboat or the murmur of two fisherman on a distant shore. Lake George is a massive bowl of clear, turquoise water on a backbone of a mighty mountain range and when you draw your lungs full of air, oh, it stings. And when you look up at Crystal Crag you almost feel top-heavy with vertigo. It’s almost frightening!
David the psalmist must have felt that same dizzy rush when he wrote, “Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set the glory above the heavens. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for Him?”
David was blown away in the jet blast of God’s beauty and greatness. He found himself shaking his head, like I have often done on Lake George saying, “What, come on, God, is puny man that you take thought of him?” Now, he could have been overwhelmed by the greatness of God, maybe frightened, terrified – kind of like I have felt at the base of Crystal Crag – but the psalmist refused to see the Lord as a cold, forbidding mountain. Yes, God was high and lifted up, a great buttress, a mighty mountain, but David saw him as a hiding place, as a refuge, a place of safety, a shelter from life’s storms, and he’s saying, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
The Bible spends a lot of time reminding us that we are weak and lonely and powerless. And the Bible spends even more time reminding us that God is strong and high and lifted up. Everything that God is, we are not! So why does the Lord confront us in Scripture with vista after vista of His powerful might and overwhelming splendor? Oh, friend, not so that you will feel crushed or intimidated or frightened. No, but that you will say, “Lead me to that rock that is higher than I!” Because you recognize your total and desperate need of Him.
In your crazy world, for sure, you may feel overwhelmed, but today, look at God as your strong tower. Find in Him your refuge. You’ll never feel top-heavy from emotional vertigo.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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