Paths of the Sea

Recently my husband and I had the time to drive out to west Texas to the Davis Mountains. I had long wanted to see the “stars at night...deep in the heart of Texas.” I had often wondered what it would have been like to look at the stars as Abraham did when God said that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky. Living around so many lights in the city has kept me from even being able to imagine stars that numerous. I wanted to see them for myself. How could the God of such inexplicable creation have an interest Abraham, or in you or I, for that matter?

King David in writing Psalm 8 must have had a similar sense of wonder, for it says,

 “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

 What is man that You take thought of him,

And the son of man that You care for him?”

While at the welcome center at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas we were shown the Orion nebula through a telescope and were told that the nebula was a “star nursery”! Stars continue to be “born” in this nursery!! I was grateful to be there and observe what I could, and I am grateful to those scientists who continue to do the study with the powerful telescopes that they have. The telescopes continue to reveal more of the marvel that is there in the heavens that the unaided eye can’t see! However, before the telescopes revealed more of the mysteries of the universe, the prophet Amos revealed that “He who made the Pleiades and Orion and changes deep darkness into morning, who also darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is His name,” Amos 5:8.

David goes on to speak in Psalm 8 about how God gave mankind the stupendous job of overseeing creation by giving him “rule over the works of Your hands...all sheep and oxen...beasts of the field.. birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas.” This is amazing to David given the fact that God “has set [His] glory above the heavens.” In other words,  as amazing as what we do see is unfathomable, what we can’t see is even more so; God is “above the heavens” making Him so much more difficult to understand.

In the space of three weeks I am now writing from Alaska. I’ve gone from seeing the stars in the Davis mountains of Texas to trying to see what is passing “through the paths of the sea” in Seward, Alaska! On a ship with 103 other passengers my husband and I were thrilled to see two types of whales, humpbacks and Orcas!! I’ve never heard a crowd of people be that quiet! They were silenced by awe, and so was the captain. In 24 years of sailing he said he had not seen as many Orcas as we saw that day. Even the scientists on a nearby research vessel said it was one of the most amazing group of killer whales they had ever seen.

In less than a month I’ve gotten to experience both phrases from Psalm 8 about the “heavens...the moon and stars” and the “paths of the sea”!

Regardless of what scientists in either sphere know, they will admit there is a lot they do not know. These monster whales travel the “paths of the sea” at regular times during the year, migrating from various places to Alaska. Returning Orcas can be identified by the patterns on their backs and fins! Humpbacks also return to the Bering Strait, as if on schedule. The orcas are there, too, waiting for the mother and baby whale; the pod of Orcas works to separate the baby humpback from his mother, hoping to consume it for meal. Both types of whales have returned there on an underwater highway, “the paths of the sea”, with their sense of direction steered by water temperature and food!

Trying to understand God by what He has made and what He has done is something we are encouraged to do.  David implies this when he uses the word “consider” in Psalm 8. What David sees prompts him to think and ask questions.

Elsewhere David uses the word “meditate.” In Psalm 145:5 David says, “On the glorious splendor of [God’s] majesty and on [His] wonderful works, I will meditate.”  The other verses that came up on a search of the word “meditation” in the Psalms in the New American Standard Version (NASB) are: Ps. 4:4; 27:4;63:6; 77:12; 119:27. In these verses the King James version, however, translated the word “meditation” several different ways: “commune”, “inquire”, “remember”, and “talk”. Far from the current usage of the word “meditation” which implies emptying the mind for the purpose of chanting mantras in order to achieve a desired state, meditation in the Psalms means to “muse”, “study”, or “ponder”. “Meditation” is to think about what we do know but don’t completely understand and to then engage our mind to understand more about God and His ways.  

When we set ourselves to understand the inexplicable and fathom the unfathomable it is advantageous to “consider” what God has already revealed to us. We are blessed to live in an age where much of what we couldn’t see clearly is now revealed to us in greater ways, like the “paths of the sea” or Orion’s nebula. We can also take God’s word for it that “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” Genesis 1:1