Bird’s Eye View

  • August 6, 2024
  • /
  • Park Forum

Scripture Focus: Psalm 144.3-5
3 Lord, what are human beings that you care for them,
    mere mortals that you think of them?
4 They are like a breath;
    their days are like a fleeting shadow.
5 Part your heavens, Lord, and come down;
    touch the mountains, so that they smoke.

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Reflection: Bird’s Eye View
By Lark Kelsey

Whenever I fly I like to look out the window just after takeoff. Cars and trucks moving along the road begin to resemble children’s toys as we rise toward the clouds. Everything below becomes smaller and smaller, shrinking to insignificance compared with the immensity of the sky. The change in perspective is an opportunity for humility. Getting a bird’s eye view reminds us just how small we really are. 

David’s wonder in Psalm 144 expresses a similar sentiment. He speaks of God’s power to deliver although he himself is helpless. While God’s nature is eternal, human life is fleeting. God is so far above that David marvels at why God thinks of humans at all.

David understands he is incapable of saving himself and needs rescue from someone on high. Whether by parting the heavens, touching the mountains, or sending forth lightning, David asks God to reach down and save him from his enemies. David compares his plight to drowning in mighty waters, looking for God to draw him up and out of the waves.

Like David, we need intervention. In a broken world, we often struggle to rise above the waves of life’s difficulties, whether caused by actual enemies or everyday obstacles. We are weighed down with the cares of this life and often feel powerless to change our circumstances. 

Amazingly, we do not have a God who merely reaches down to lift us up but one who came down himself. He took on our form, our constraints, and lowered himself to our state to save us. Although God is so far beyond us, he does not treat our difficulties as trivial. 

Like David, God will not save us from every trial or give us victory in every battle. Yet we can find comfort in God’s presence in the midst of all our problems. David calls God “My loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge” and so can we. (Psalm 144.2).

If we take a bird’s eye view of our problems, how do they compare to God’s power? No matter how insignificant our problems may seem from 35,000 feet, they are as important to God as if he was sitting on the couch with us. How can we find refuge in God’s presence with us today as we wait for relief?

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning, for I put my trust in you; show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you. — Psalm 143.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


​Today’s Readings
Isaiah 66 (Listen 5:20)
Psalms 144 (Listen 1:56)

Read more about A God Who Celebrates
O God, we are unworthy creatures who rejoice that you rejoice over us.

A God Who Celebrates

Read more about He Stoops to Raise
He strips himself.
He lays aside
His Heaven
His throne
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Breath, Reconsidered :: Readers’ Choice

  • August 23, 2019
  • /
  • John Tillman

Selected by reader, Steve Bostrom, from Helena, Montana
Typically, we view breath as insubstantial. This post significantly enlarges that thought. We go from ordinary breath to breath needed for a robust life envisioned by our Creator who breathed out not only sighs (Mark 7:34) but also gives his last breath on the cross so he can breathe upon us his invigorating Holy Spirit. Glory!

Scripture Focus: Psalm 144.3-4
Lord, what are human beings that you care for them,
mere mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
their days are like a fleeting shadow.

John 3.5-8
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Reflection: Breath, Reconsidered :: Readers’ Choice
Originally published November 12th, 2018 
By John Tillman

We rightly think of the psalmist comparing us to breath as humbling. But not everything that humbles humiliates. When humbled we are prepared to be lifted up, by God.

In Aramaic and Greek the word for “Spirit,” “breath,” and “wind” is the same word. This makes Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus one in which we must carefully attune our ears to context. Jesus is purposefully mixing his meanings. As Eugene Peterson rhetorically asks in his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, “What’s being talked about here, breathing, or weather, or God?”

Although the length of a breath may be a humbling downside, perhaps, there is also an upside.

Breath, Reconsidered
Lord, what are we that you care for us?
We are like a breath.

Like a breath, Lord, we pass from the earth.
Like a breath, Lord, insubstantial we seem.
Like a breath, Lord, some deep and some shallow.
Like a breath, Lord, we dissipate in the breeze.

But you gave us breath,
Your mouth on Adam’s lips.
And you redeemed breath
When Christ first drew it in
And you received his breath,
When his Spirit he released
He gave that Spirit to us
When on the disciples he breathed…

We are Adam’s first breath,
His first breath, re-breathed.

We are like a breath, we are a beginning
We are like a breath the first sign of life
We are like a breath, divine inspiration
We are like a breath, a baby’s first cry
We are the breath, of a worker,
drawn to take strength

We are the breath, of a mother,
that can warm frigid hands
We are the breath, of the preacher,
whose voice carries a dream
We are the breath, of a singer,
whose song fills the land

Breath sustains symphonies
Breath extinguishes candles
Breath ignites embers
Breath powers prophets
Breath connects lovers
Breath fills balloons
Breath is life

Breath serenades
Breath enlightens
Breath enlivens
Breath laughs
Breath shouts
Breath prays
Breath fills
Breath comes
Breath goes

Lord, what are we that you care for us?
We are like a breath.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence
O Lord, I call to you; my Rock, do not be deaf to my cry; lest, if you do not hear me, I become like those who go down to the Pit. — Psalm 28.1

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 15 (Listen – 5:46) 
Romans 13 (Listen – 2:35)

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 16 (Listen – 3:45), Romans 14 (Listen – 3:28)
1 Samuel 17 (Listen – 8:59), Romans 15 (Listen – 4:32)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Submit a Readers’ Choice
Let our community hear how your faith has grown. What post helped you heal?

Read more about He Stoops to Raise
He strips himself.
He lays aside
His Heaven
His throne
His clothes
His life

He Stoops to Raise

Breath, Reconsidered

  • July 9, 2019
  • /
  • John Tillman

Psalm 144.3-4
Lord, what are human beings that you care for them,
mere mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
their days are like a fleeting shadow.

John 3.5-8
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Reflection: Breath, Reconsidered
By John Tillman

We rightly think of the psalmist comparing us to breath as humbling. But not everything that humbles humiliates. When humbled we are prepared to be lifted up, by God.

In Aramaic and Greek the word for “Spirit,” “breath,” and “wind” is the same word. This makes Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus one in which we must carefully attune our ears to context. Jesus is purposefully mixing his meanings. As Eugene Peterson rhetorically asks in his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, “What’s being talked about here, breathing, or weather, or God?”

Although the length of a breath may be a humbling downside, perhaps, there is also an upside.

Breath, Reconsidered
Lord, what are we that you care for us?
We are like a breath.

Like a breath, Lord, we pass from the earth.
Like a breath, Lord, insubstantial we seem.
Like a breath, Lord, some deep and some shallow.
Like a breath, Lord, we dissipate in the breeze.

But you gave us breath,
Your mouth on Adam’s lips.
And you redeemed breath
When Christ first drew it in
And you received his breath,
When his Spirit he released
He gave that Spirit to us
When on the disciples he breathed…

We are Adam’s first breath,
His first breath, re-breathed.

We are like a breath, we are a beginning
We are like a breath the first sign of life
We are like a breath, divine inspiration
We are like a breath, a baby’s first cry
We are the breath, of a worker,
drawn to take strength

We are the breath, of a mother,
that can warm frigid hands
We are the breath, of the preacher,
whose voice carries a dream
We are the breath, of a singer,
whose song fills the land

Breath sustains symphonies
Breath extinguishes candles
Breath ignites embers
Breath powers prophets
Breath connects lovers
Breath fills balloons
Breath is life

Breath serenades
Breath enlightens
Breath enlivens
Breath laughs
Breath shouts
Breath prays
Breath fills
Breath comes
Breath goes

Lord, what are we that you care for us?
We are like a breath.

Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to him with psalms. — Psalm 95.1-2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Joshua 11 (Listen – 3:52) 
Psalm 144 (Listen – 1:56)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift. 

Read more poetry: Accepting Jesus
She takes within her body
The cure for the sickness of sin
She gives the maker of the Garden
Tiny feet to walk earth again.

Accepting Jesus

Read more poetry: He Stoops to Raise
He strips himself.
He lays aside
His Heaven
His throne
His clothes
His life

He Stoops to Raise