Dear Reader,
This morning I found myself
reflecting on Psalm 8 and on a question that seems almost as large as the
heavens the psalmist was looking toward:
"What
is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest
him?" - Psalm 8:4
The phrase "son of
man" caught my attention. In the Hebrew of this psalm, the expression is
ben adam. At its simplest, it means a human being, a mortal person, a member of
the human family.
That alone is worth pausing
over.
The psalmist looks upward at the
moon and stars, at a creation so vast that human life can appear almost
insignificant. Then he looks honestly at humanity. We are limited. We are
fragile. We are not nearly as powerful as we sometimes imagine ourselves to be.
And yet the psalmist asks a
remarkable question: Why would God be mindful of us at all?
He does not ask why man is so
powerful, so wise, or so important. He wonders why the Creator of the heavens
concerns Himself with people as small and temporary as we are.
For me, that is a deeply
recovery-centered question.
Many of us have lived at both
extremes. At times we have felt too important, too self-willed, too certain
that we knew what life should be and how everyone around us should behave. At
other times we have felt broken, ashamed, and hardly worth noticing. Addiction,
pride, fear, resentment, and pain can all distort the truth of who we are.
Psalm 8 offers a better balance: right-sizing is not the same as
belittling ourselves.
I am reminded that I am not the
center of some grand universe. The celestial sky above me is vast. God is God,
and I am not. Recovery begins well when I stop trying to rule life and become
willing to surrender to a Power greater than myself.
But humility is not
self-contempt. Humility is truth.
I am
limited.
I need help.
I cannot control everything.
But I am not worthless.
Psalm 8 does not end with our
smallness. The psalmist also tells us that we are not forgotten. In fact, he
goes on to describe humanity as crowned with "glory and honour." We
are small beneath the heavens, yet we possess a dignity given by God.
That may be one of the most
healing truths a suffering person can hear.
No matter what continues to
plague us, Psalm 8 tells us that God is mindful of us. Not merely aware of us
from a distance, but attentive to us, concerned for us, and actively caring for
us.
This is a truth I experience
almost every twenty-four hours of my recovery. The tools are often simple: the
willingness to admit that I need help, the acceptance of kindness offered by
others, and the willingness to return that kindness through love and service.
We are small, and yet crowned with dignity. We are frail, and yet
remembered. We are human, and yet precious to God.
There is another lesson in the
expression ben adam. Every person we meet is included in that ancient idea: a
member of the human family.
That changes the way I should
see the people around me. The struggling newcomer, the difficult neighbor, the
lonely elder, the impatient friend, the person who has disappointed me, and the
person who keeps falling and getting back up are all people God is mindful of.
If God remains mindful of them, then I must try to be mindful too.
That may mean listening with
more patience, speaking with more kindness, teaching with more tenderness, and
remembering that no one I meet is ever "just" a problem to be solved.
Each person is a soul.
For the Christian reader, the
words also carry a deeper echo. The New Testament book of Hebrews quotes Psalm
8 and then turns our attention toward Jesus. The simple expression "son of
man," which in the psalm speaks of humanity, later becomes one of the
titles Christ so often uses for Himself.
I find great comfort in that
connection. The God who is mindful of humanity did not remain distant from
humanity. In Jesus Christ, He entered our mortal condition. Christ knew grief,
rejection, loneliness, suffering, and death. He knows the weakness of the ben
adam because He chose to walk among us.
Psalm 8 begins with wonder at
the heavens, but it leads me back to compassion on earth.
The question is not only,
"What is man?" The deeper answer is this: we are small, but precious;
weak, but not abandoned; human, but held in the mind and mercy of God.
For those of us walking the road
of recovery, that is good news.
• We do not need to become grand in our own eyes.
• We do not need to despair over our weakness.
• We only need to remember who God is, and trust that He has
not forgotten who we are.
Humility says, "I am not God." Grace says,
"But I matter to God." Service says, "And so does the person
standing beside me."
Thank you for reading. May you always find God's love and
encouragement.
🙏🧘♂️💕🤗☮️
