Psalms 104

Psalms 104:17

One-Roomed Houses Where the birds make their nests.—Psalms 104:17.I have no doubt some of you boys and girls can look back to a month of May when your father and mother moved to a new house.Probably you gave the matter little thought; but you loved the change. Everything about you was new, and seemed so different from the things in the house you had just left. You went on making discoveries every day. Why, even the boys and girls in the neighborhood were strangers to you; you had to find new friends among them.Mother was very, very busy then, and for months afterwards. Don’t you remember? She kept working and planning things; all the time she was really wondering how she could get everyone, from father down to the baby, comfortably settled.

That, in a house of two or three rooms, is always the mother’s great problem. But in spite of a good deal that is very trying to the temper in those little homes, the mother is generally a very happy person indeed.1. How would you like to live in a house of one room? When you think of it doesn’t your mind wander away to the fireside of some very poor person, and you say to yourself, “I should not like it at all.” But there have been happy, though poor homes in houses of one room. That was when people in them loved each other; remember that loving each other does not depend on having money.I wish I could take you to see the wonderful one- roomed houses that are in my mind. May is the very best time in which to take a peep into them; they are perfect then.

Like Peter Pan’s cottage some of them are away up in the tree-tops, but others you can see simply by standing on tiptoe, or it may be by kneeling down; they are in all sorts of out-of-the-way places.I have a new neighbor just over the way, Who took up her residence early in May. And all of the furniture ever I saw Was nothing but rubbish and sticks and straw; But when I made her a call just now I found she had furnished her house somehow, All trim and tidy and nice and neat, The prettiest cottage in all the street. Of thistledown silk was her carpet fine, A thousand times better and softer than mine; Her curtains, to shut out the heat and light, Were woven of blossoms pink and white; And the dainty roof of her tiny home Was a broad green leaf like an emerald dome. ’Tis the cosiest nook that you ever did see, Mrs. Yellowbird’s house in the apple-tree. (A Garland of Verse, p. 180.)I had the good fortune to have a nest shown to me when it was empty. Its resting-place was the forked branch of a tree. How wonderful that little home was! It was built of—what do you think?—stalks of clematis blossom. The twigs were lightly interwoven, leaving the branched heads outside, and it had been lined, oh, so softly! with feathers and grass. A dear little mother bullfinch had built it, and just a little while before her four or five wee babies had opened their eyes and looked over the wall of it, down upon the wonderful world below.Younger than we are, O children, and frailer, Soon in blue air they’ll be, Singer and sailor. We, so much older, Taller and stronger, We shall look down on the Birdies no longer. They shall go flying With musical speeches High overhead in the Tops of the beeches. In spite of our wisdom And sensible talking, We on our feet must go Plodding and walking. (R. L. Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses.)2. There are different varieties among these one- roomed homes. Mother chaffinch builds one that is deliciously soft and mossy. Sometimes she chooses to place it in a hawthorn hedge, or she may find a very suitable place among laurel or other similar bushes. I should not wonder if you chanced to find one if you look for it; but don’t be too forward, or you will frighten the gentle little mother bird. She is of course very much taken up with the care of her little ones.Of course you know the mavis, or the song-thrush— to give it its proper name.

She builds a wonderful little house. It is well plastered; for the baby mavises are born naked, blind, and helpless, and mother thrush prepares for the rough winds that are sure to come. It is a sight worth seeing, the mother feeding the gaping nestful as soon as they are born, while the father, perched on a neighboring tree, sings a wonderful song to his household. But although a young mavis is about as helpless a living creature as one could find, it soon learns to take care of itself.A very wonderful bird called the moor-hen builds its nest with twigs and sticks in the middle of thick rushes by the edge of a loch or slow stream. Her brood are cleverer than the young mavises. Before they are an hour out of the shell they can wash and dress themselves, frolic about with their mother, and even pick up their own living.

Think of that!3. I knew a family of boys and girls whose house was surrounded by trees and bushes.

Of course little one-roomed houses were something they expected to see every spring (only from the outside, however). The one who first came upon a nest claimed it as his or her special property, and as far as possible protected it from the common dangers—you know them—cats and cruel boys. Many a peep they took, sometimes on tiptoe, and how they loved to see the heads of the dear little baby birds, when they did appear.How do these wonderful creatures learn to build their little houses? It is God who teaches them. We say they do it by instinct. God put the instinct there. We have to learn everything we do, but unlike them we need never stop learning as long as we live.Birds give us a great deal of happiness. They are happy themselves, and that in a very simple and beautiful way.

Have you ever watched them picking up crumbs? How gracefully and how deftly they do it. Then they fly away up into the trees and sing for the sheer joy of life. If we only remember that the dainty little one-roomed houses of the hedges and the tree-tops are built after the plan of the Great Teacher, and that Jesus cared even for the baby sparrows, I feel sure that no nest would ever be treated with anything but love and respect. The thought of God’s love and care would often be in our minds. We should want to thank Him for the builders of the houses in the tree-tops and hedges.

Psalms 104:25

The Great, Wide Sea Yonder is the sea, great and wide.—Psalms 104:25.Some people think that the writer of this psalm was sitting on the slopes of Mount Lebanon when he composed it. He was speaking about all the wonderful things God had made, and then his eye lighted on the scene in front of him. Away in the distance, as far as the eye could see, stretched the blue waters of the Mediterranean. And so the psalmist made a little word picture of what he saw. “Yonder is the sea,” he said, “great and wide,” and then he described the ships that were sailing on it, and the great sea-monsters that were sporting in it.Now I want you to do just what that psalmist did. I want you to make a little picture of the great, wide sea. Perhaps some of you will say you can’t draw or paint.

But that does not matter. The picture I want you to make is in your mind.

I want you to imagine that you and I are standing on the seashore with the little waves lapping at our feet, and we shall listen to the message they whisper to us today.1. And, first, I think the sea whispers, “I am a wonderful mirror. On my bosom I reflect the colors of the sky. When it is dark and stormy, so am I; when it is cold and grey, I also am cold and grey; when it is blue, my surface is like a sapphire. When the sun blazes forth, I sparkle like a diamond; when the moon shines, I carry a beautiful lane of light”I think there are boys and girls who are like the sea. They reflect the thing nearest them.

If they are with good people, they are good; if they are with bad people, they are bad; if their friends are foolish, they are foolish too.Will you try to remember two things, dear children?First, the sea reflects what is above it. It is a mirror of the sky.

If you must copy somebody, copy somebody good, copy the highest, copy Jesus whom God sent to be our Pattern of all that is pure, and beautiful, and good. Sometimes the sea reflects what is beneath it—the rocks and the sand and the mud, but that is only in the shallow parts. It is generally the people who have not much depth who reflect the things beneath them, the things that are foolish and unworthy.And the other thing I want you to remember is that the sea has a, color of its own. It is only the surface that reflects. If you go out in a small boat you will notice that the sea’s own color is a beautiful, cool green. God has given us each our own color too.

He has made you just you and nobody else, and He wants you to be just you and nobody else. Learn everything that is wise and noble from your friends, and your books and your surroundings; but don’t forget that you have a place to fill that nobody else can fill, and that you can fill it best by being just yourself.2.

And, second, the sea whispers, “I am very strong. Today I break in ripples at your feet, but tomorrow I may dash ships to matchwood and toss great boulders as though they were pebbles.” Yes, the sea is very strong, but God is stronger. The winds and the waves must obey His voice, and when He says, “Peace, be still,” their raging ceases. When I stand by the seashore and hear the boom of the breakers, when I watch the great green billows roll in, curl over, and dash in helpless fury upon the rocks, I always think of two verses in one of the old Scotch psalms I learned when I was just about as big as some of you are—The floods, O Lord, have lifted up, they lifted up their voice; The floods have lifted up their waves, and made a mighty noise. But yet the Lord, that is on high, is more of might by far Than noise of many waters is, or great sea-billows are. God can still the raging of the great seas, and He can still, too, the storms in our hearts. When we are filled with angry passions He can say, “Peace, be still.” Will you let God lay His gentle hand on you and take away all your angry, spiteful, ungenerous feelings?3. Once more, the sea whispers, “I am very great. I am very wide. I am so much bigger than the land, that if you were to divide the world into seven parts I should occupy five of them, and the land but two. And I am very deep.

In some places I am five or six miles deep, and if you sank the highest mountain in the world into these depths I should cover it by half a mile.”Yes, the sea is very wide and very deep, but not wider than God’s mercy, not deeper than His love. That love is like a great ocean surrounding us and overwhelming us. We can never get beyond it or above it. It is grander, and more tender, and more compassionate than we can ever imagine. Some day, on the other side of the great ocean we must all cross at last, we shall see God’s love in all its breadth, and length, and height, and depth. But we can ask Him now to open our eyes so that we may behold a little of that love, to touch our hearts so that we may give.

Him in return our entire love and devotion.