The world is a masterpiece. We can come to that conclusion not only from nature itself, but from Psalm 29 as well. The world is a masterpiece – may all glory be to the Lord!

But sometimes there may be another voice in your heart. Not even the voice of the evil one, but a voice from within yourself. You know the Lord, you share the awe for his creation, you acknowledge Him as the Master. Yet is this world really a masterpiece? In this world of ours, is there not so much darkness that you can hardly see the hand of the Master? The beauty of the Rockies is astonishing and there you can sense the power of God. But do you remember Hurricane Katrina, some years ago? That was even more astonishing perhaps, but was it the power of the Lord? Sometimes the world doesn’t seem to be a masterpiece. The world is a broken world, broken into dark pieces.

Now listen again to the message of Psalm 29. When we think of creation’s beauty, we might picture fields of flowers on the hillsides and sunsets at the sea. Yet David hears the voice of the Lord in the thunder, in fire, in earthquakes, and the like.

And David does, because the Holy Spirit wants to make us think deeper when it comes to light and darkness in this creation. No, the Bible does not say the Lord started it all by saying, “Let there be darkness,” and there was darkness. But the Holy Spirit teaches us that God is God enough to be light and to give light and yet not to be absent in the darkness. When the thunder rolls and the earth is shaking, you still can hear his voice. The Lord of light rules over the darkness.

But how can the Holy Spirit depict the Lord as being the Mighty One, even over the dark sides of creation? How can God keep his holiness and righteousness when He is also called Lord of the storms? How can He be the good Master of all when evil strikes?

The first thing to say is that for David, this must have been a matter of believing more than of seeing. He had been shepherd in the hills of Judah in his younger days. He must have hidden during thunderstorms more than once. His heathen colleagues told him, “Hear the power of Baal!” But David knew it was the voice of the Lord. “But how can your God, the Good and Almighty One, have a hand in this awesome darkness, David?” And David may not have known how exactly, but he knew that God did. He is Master, even when the darkness surrounds us.

The Lord of the light maintains his power in the dark. And there has been a Son of David who could relate to that. His name was Jesus Christ and He was not only the true son of David, He was also his Master and Lord. He was crucified – and all the lights went off and the earth was shaken. There is a tension between the almighty goodness of the Lord and all the dark misery in the world. But we believe that God mastered this tension on Golgotha. And just like David, I cannot find the words to say how exactly it happened, but with more certainty than David I can say that it did happen. The eternal Good One goes under in the darkness and He rises up again.

Where does that leave us? The Bible calls the world a masterpiece and Psalm 29 claims that you can even hear the voice of the Lord through the darkness. That leaves us to apply that truth to ourselves and in our own lives. And that’s a hard one. In a way, it’s much easier to ascribe the world’s misery to the negative powers surrounding you. Or to pretend that what happens to you happens by accident. But to see the Lord, who is working through both the darkness and the light in your life, is not easy to believe. Of course you cannot say that a destructive hurricane is a masterpiece, nor is the death of a loved one. But the point is, are we willing to hear the voice of the Master, who says that He knows the way in the darkness? Do we hear the voice of the Lord?