Title:  Rich diversity

Francois Sieberhagen

O Lord, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world!  Psalm 8:9

When walking with a camera many subjects come forth, events, people and situations calling out: “Take a picture of me.  Capture me with your camera.  Make me look pretty, I am special!”

As humans we do not see all the special things around us.  The reason is simple: we specialize.  Specializing which entails having different preferences and different taste.  Some people prefer a beautiful nature scene and for someone else this means nothing.  Think of a beautiful sunset.  One person gets excited about a scene at a market in a foreign country or city while someone else does not appreciate it at all.  To them it might be another crowd of people.

A photograph of a child may excite parents and family members while people outside this circle of family and friends do not get excited about the same photo.

Is that wrong?  Not at all!  As a matter of fact, it contributes to the rich variety of thoughts and attitudes.

This tapestry of thoughts and attitudes tells the story of how big our God is.  He is so big he can accommodate all of these different tastes.  He does not care what your preferences are.  He uses it by bringing it in accordance with the bigger picture.  And then he fills his bigger picture with love, grace and mercy.

He creates space so that the smaller picture that we like makes sense and can fit into the bigger picture, and then within the bigger picture as a whole.

When we fit into God’s bigger picture then we can not do anything else but agree with the Psalmist and say “how wonderful is your name”.

It should excite us, knowing that we are so special that even with all our strangeness, we are still important to God.  He will always go to trouble with you.  Thus, it is only fitting that he receives all the praise and honour I can give him.

Prayer: Lord, use me today to praise you through everything I do.  Amen.