Ascribing Glory

“Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.” – Psalm 29:1

“Just as the eighth Psalm is to be read by moonlight, when the stars are bright, as the nineteenth needs the rays of the rising sun to bring out its beauty, so this can be best rehearsed beneath the black wing of tempest, by the flare of the lightening, or amid that dubious dusk which heralds the war of elements. The verses march to the tune of thunderbolts.” – Charles Spurgeon

We just got back from a four-day family vacation, which was unquestionably worthwhile but has given me a new appreciation for the effort my parents made to take us on family vacations each year. My favorite was the year we went to Yellowstone National Park. I remember one moment when a sudden storm descended upon the Teton mountains we were driving towards. We pulled over, got out of the car, and stood speechless before the most amazing lightening show we had ever seen, jagged streaks lighting up the sky behind the mountain peaks. 

I can’t help but think we in the Bay Area are a bit handicapped in reading Psalm 29, stuck as we are in our time capsule of meteorological perfection. You can read about storms, but it’s another thing to experience one, to hear thunder so loud and close you feel afraid, to huddle in a bathtub during a hurricane, powerless until it passes. There is a kind of fearful glory in that, isn’t there? A weightiness of power, a splendor of might and reach, an inescapable transcendence that reaches past your mind into the core of your being and feelings. It isn’t anything you can conjure, or argue against: it simply is, and we can only cry, “glory!”

David describes the voice of God flashing fire, stripping trees, shaking and breaking. But the most striking sign of power is that whatever God’s voice does, He does. That is the cadence, the echo, in verses five and six: “The voice of the Lord breaks… The Lord breaks… The voice of the Lord shakes… the Lord shakes...” And of course we see this throughout all scripture: what he speaks, is created (Genesis 1:3); what he speaks, happens (Matthew 5:18); what he speaks, became flesh (John 1:14), the temple in verse nine made alive. 

Don’t we all long for this kind of glory? Sometimes I think what I’m really searching for in entertainment, in movies and sports and novels, is just that kind of transcendent stirring to lift me out of my mundane daily life. We are all created for glory. How mysterious, then, that David says, “ascribe.” The two words translated “heavenly beings” literally mean “sons of God”—he may be addressing beings in heaven, or us on earth, or both. Why must we be commanded to ascribe? Because so often we are blind to the glory of God. It is literally around us, all the time: but when was the last time you consciously saw the glory of God? When was the last time you credited God what he is due, what he is worth? This is what it means to worship (verse 2): simply to acknowledge the reality of God’s glory, until it rises up in a cry within us (verse 9), until we find in it our rest (verse 11).