We were challenged this past Sunday
to let our worship to God be a wonder-full springboard for the day!
The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof,
the world and all who dwell therein.
the world and all who dwell therein.
Psalm 24:1
The birth of day spills heaven’s songs
To throngs of need-greed-grit
Where earth and all therein belongs
To He who ordained it
His workmanship is beautiful
His ‘let there be’s’ amaze
Where nothing is more pitiful
Than hearts bereft of praise
For nature has not ceased its hymns
Nor let its wonder die
Since dawn of Time its worship brims
To God from sod-sea-sky
The layout of life’s solemn charge
Should author shades of shame
If we, aboard earth’s mercy-barge
Forget to praise His name
The Name that saves, comforts and heals
The Name above all names
The only Name whose love reveals
The devil’s awful aims
…and ushers hope to hopeless hearts
Where gloom would fill this shell
Save for His blood that quenches darts
Drenched with the doom of hell
Then take a lesson from the leaves
From birds or blooms that nod
From seas that strum sand-harps or sheaves
Bent with the proof of God
This dot of blue is not some fluke
Tossed to a starry maze
But cups Love’s favor and rebuke
To author songs of praise
© Janet Martin
The Worship of Nature
By John Greenleaf Whittier
The harp at Nature’s advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.
And prayer is made, and praise is given,
By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.
Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
The priesthood of the sea!
They pour their glittering treasures forth,
Their gifts of pearl they bring,
And all the listening hills of earth
Take up the song they sing.
The green earth sends its incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
She pours her sacred wine.
The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar-curtains of the hills
Are sunset’s purple air.
The winds with hymns of praise are loud,
Or low with sobs of pain,—
The thunder-organ of the cloud,
The dropping tears of rain.
With drooping head and branches crossed
The twilight forest grieves,
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost
From all its sunlit leaves.
The blue sky is the temple’s arch,
Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.
So Nature keeps the reverent frame
With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of man.
