Psalm 8: Mindful

We all love to be thought of. There is something special about a phone call, a text, a note, a gift that is given or time that is taken for no other reason than we were on someone’s mind. In Psalm 8 David begins by singing about the greatness of God. He wrote, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” This was a declaration of God’s greatness. David described God’s name as “magnificent, illustrious, glorious”. He is high and mighty, His glory is set above the heavens, the galaxies are the work of His fingers, His hands set the moon and the stars in their place. God is, for lack of a better term, awesome.

Sometimes, if we are not careful, the awesomeness of God can make Him feel too big for us. We read the imagery God spoke to Isaiah, “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool . . .” and we are tempted to think of God as far away and of ourselves as insignificant. The greatness of God declared in Psalm 8 is not about His size or His strength. David was not writing or singing about the nations being in God’s hands, the universe being unable to contain His glory or the hands of His Son holding all things together. In Psalm 8, the majesty of God is that in His awesomeness He is mindful of us.

The word translated as “mindful” in this Psalm simply means “to remember, recall, call to mind.” This is a word that is used often about God in the Old Testament. He remembered Noah, He remembered His covenant, He remembered Abraham, He remembered Rachel. But this word is also used by God, as a command, that we remember the Sabbath, remember the commandments and be holy, remember how the LORD has led and what He has done. David is not saying that God occasionally thinks of us or that from time to time we pop into God’s mind. David is not at all implying that God could ever be forgetful. In fact, I believe it’s the exact opposite, in David’s forgetfulness, He has discovered that God remembers.

The Psalms are not a narrative, we are not reading them in any sort of chronological order, and yet, the few that come before Psalm 8 give us a very clear view of David’s state of mind and condition of his heart. He had been overwhelmed, betrayed by his son, accused by his enemies and in some ways forgotten by his friends. David had cried out to God for help, for vindication, for restitution, he had, at times, felt forgotten. And then we come to Psalm 8, and David seems to be reminding himself of the one thing that had gotten lost in his trouble and anxiety, God was mindful of him.

God remembers us because He has chosen to, He thinks of us because while we have been commanded to set our minds on things above, He has decided to set His mind upon us. It’s not His power that keeps Him from forgetting, it’s His character. When God formed mankind in His image, He put his breath in us and set His heart, His love, upon us. When we wander, He doesn’t waver. As I love to say, our calamity doesn’t change God’s character. He doesn’t simply stay the same, He refuses to change. Paul told Timothy, “if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who He is.” We have not earned our way into God’s attention and we cannot fail our way out of His affection. We are not worthy and yet He is not changed. He has chosen to be mindful of us.

David was lightening his load by reminding himself that he could stop trying to get God’s attention, he could take a break from recounting the details of his trouble as if God was unaware. David started to be mindful of God by remembering that God had always been mindful of Him. We are probably all similar to David. When all we can see is trouble, we start to think that we might be unseen. We start sending up flares, distress signals disguised as prayers, fearful petitions rather than intimate conversations. We forget that God remembers. In Psalm 8 David was teaching us that we don’t have to cry louder or pray harder, we just need to be mindful of the One who is mindful of us, to remember that we are remembered, to know that the God of heaven has chosen to set His heart and His mind upon the people of earth.