O the glory of Your presence
We Your temple give You rev’rence
Come and rise from Your rest
And be blessed by our praise
As we glory in Your embrace
As Your presence now fills this placeJesus all-glorious
Create in us a temple
Called as living stones
Where You’re enthroned
As You rose from death in pow’r
So rise within our worship
Rise upon our praise
And let the hand that saw You raised
Clothe us in Your glory
Draw us by Your graceCome and rise from Your rest
Steve Fry
And be blessed by our praise
As we glory in Your embrace
As Your presence now fills this place
This holy place
When I was a young boy I could while away hours of a summer day lying on the plush carpet of our back yard, gazing up into the white clouds that lived in the clear blue sky, fantasizing over their pillowy, constantly shifting formations. I could roll over to study the intricacies of plant and insect life making their home in the green grass and dandelions growing in the fertile black loam of middle America.
I dreamed up machines that could not and would not ever exist. I created imaginary beings out of nothing more tangible than laboring gray cells. I dismantled old radio and black and white television chassis, pretending there was purpose to my madness. For me our garage attic was a dark and dusty labyrinth of secret adventure and mystery known only to me.
Today, sadly, the condition and appearance of the sky is only noted for its effect on my outdoor activities. Today, instead of inspecting every blade of grass in the lawn, I wield a steel beast round and round to mow four acres of the stuff.
I no longer dream up fanciful machines, nor do I tear apart old ones just for the fun of it. And there are no mysteries hiding in my present garage attic, only storage items and a few small, irritating critters.
Venerable saints, long in tooth and short in memory, may be a valued repository of spiritual wisdom gathered over the years, but many have forgotten what it is to gasp in wonder at the majestic genius of a holy God. For many of us He has become little more than a favorite old uncle that we sing about on Sunday mornings and occasionally pray to because, after all, He is God. These apathetic responses to such a dynamic God and gracious Savior can be the unfortunate result of knowing Him for so long.
He is an old friend of whom we think we know everything there is to know, so we have stopped asking about what we don’t. Knowing a little, we forget the wealth beyond our ken.
But as for me, I will wait continually,
Psalm 71:14–16
And will praise You yet more and more.
My mouth shall recount Your righteousness
And Your salvation all day long;
For I do not know the sum of them.
I will come with the mighty deeds of Lord Yahweh;
I will bring to remembrance Your righteousness, Yours alone.
We know the correct order of all the books of the Bible, but have forgotten what it is for our breath to be stolen by the wondrous glory of His presence.
Now the cherubim were standing on the right side of the house when the man entered, and the cloud filled the inner court. Then the glory of Yahweh rose up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of Yahweh. Moreover, the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when He speaks.
Ezekiel 10:3–5
We know all the churchy words learned from our youth, but we have forgotten how to be humble before our Lord.
Come, let us worship and bow down,
Psalm 95:6–7a
Let us kneel before Yahweh our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Perhaps most of all, we have forgotten how to be overwhelmed by Him, to be struck dumb when faced with the evidence for our God’s grandeur, His excruciating holiness—to have our mundane trivialities stopped cold by the blinding, passionate urgency to know Him more, and to praise Him for who He is.
We have forgotten all that He has done—and all that He can do.
We have forgotten how to unabashedly free ourselves to the passionate, driving hunger to know all about Him—as the apostle Paul, teaching the Romans about the hardening of Israel and the mercy shown to the Gentiles, suddenly, and spontaneously breaks into a hymn of praise when He is overwhelmed by the unendurable wonder of it all:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be repaid to Him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
Romans 11:33–36
Issue #900 April 2025
Reflections by the Pond is published monthly at dlampel.com and is © 2025 David S. Lampel. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com. Photo credits: Cover, Alex Lo Storto; page 2, Micah Boswell, both on Unsplash. This and all of our resources are offered free-of-charge to the glory and praise of Christ our Lord.