Fire and Ice

(Ps. 148:8)

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verything was made for God’s pleasure.  Everything was made to praise the LORD.  This is one of the first things we learn when we come to faith.  A song bubbles up from somewhere deep within us and explodes with praise when it breaks the surface.  God inhabits praise. 

We alone, of things on earth. have the ability to withhold our praise and when we do we choke the very reason for our being.  Psalm 148 is a call to praise.  More sacred than Middle-Eastern calls to prayer from ancient minarets, the call to praise makes us remember why we were made. 

Fire, hail, snow, and vapor, and stormy wind (Ps. 148:8) were also made to praise God, and  were made for His pleasure.  While it may be hard for us to appreciate how God could find pleasure in the praise of these lesser things, the Scripture says that it is so.  The next time you witness a veil of vapor caressing a mountain or hanging low like lace in a valley, know that all things were made by Him and for Him.  The next time you hear the rain splatter against the roof, or the wind whistle through the trees, join in the chorus of praise.  In some way that we shall never know, God finds pleasure in the jasper stone, and in the sapphire, and in every single soul.  The Bible says so. 

The Son of God, more brilliant and beautiful than any other, called by Mary that “Holy Thing,” said it better than all: “I always do those things that please Him.”  Let everything that has breath -- no better still-- let “everything” praise Him. 

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