October 7, 2025
O LORD, our Lord,
how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth!You reveal your majesty in the heavens above!
From the mouths of children and nursing babies
you have ordained praise on account of your adversaries,
so that you might put an end to the vindictive enemy.When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made,
and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place,Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them?
Of what importance is mankind, that you should pay attention to them,
and make them a little less than the heavenly beings?
You grant mankind honor and majesty;you appoint them to rule over your creation;
you have placed everything under their authority,
including all the sheep and cattle,
as well as the wild animals,
the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea
and everything that moves through the currents of the seas.O LORD, our Lord,
how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth!
(Psalm 8, NET)
As I have been preparing to lead a Sunday School class at church on the Psalms, I have been captivated by Psalms 8. Much in this Psalm speaks to reflecting God in our leadership. The first thing that stands out to me is the emotion behind the text: wonder, amazement, a dumbfounded response to God’s glory, which is evident in his human creation. The Psalms, representing the prayers of God’s people, aim to shape us into his people—people who reflect him in this world. They grab our hearts, train our desires and hopes, channel our anger and fear, and focus our hearts and ears in expressions of faith in the God who saves us and makes us his own. In Psalm 8, our hearts are captured by the indescribable greatness of our God, who cares for us and crowns us with glory and honor.
Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman notes that Psalm 8 is framed by affirmations of praise to God: “O LORD, our Lord, how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth!” (vs. 1a & 9). Immediately, we understand that this psalm is about God’s greatness. That is its main focus, and the heavens above and the entire creation declare it. What lies between these two declarations is both rooted in the magnificence of God and also given its purpose by it.
The center of the Psalm states that God has granted humanity honor and majesty. He has given them the authority to rule over the creation He made. This refers to the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4. God created a well-ordered world that overcame the “formless and empty” chaos and made room for creation to thrive. Then, He created the human race to “image” Him by filling the earth and ruling it, expanding its horizons of possibility for God’s good reign over all.
I find it incredible that this God shared his glory and magnificence with his human creation. This was certainly not the way of the ancient gods of the nations. The God of the Bible does not have a fragile ego! He shares his glory with humankind and invites them to participate in his amazing work of cultivating creation. Some may find the phrase about ordaining praise from the mouths of babies out of place and hard to understand in its context. But it makes perfect sense that this God, so praised in the Psalm, ordains praise through the most fragile, humble, dependent thing we can think of…a baby. We don’t honor God by displays of power and domination. We defeat our enemies through humble trust in God who gives us honor.
Does our leadership follow the cues of Psalm 8? Brueggeman explains that we must hold the boundaries and the center together: the praise of God and the agency of his human image-bearers must be read together. Human agency without divine praise is usurpation of power, while divine praise without human agency is abdication of power. When held together, they foster creative power—the kind that gives life by sharing power and directing creation toward praise of God.
