Ascribe to the Lord, O might ones,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord strikes
with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the Lord shakes the desert,
the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, "Glory!"
The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord is enthroned as King forever.
The Lord gives strength to his people;
the Lord blesses his people with peace.
Psalm 29
This psalm accompanied me through the four surreal days on Mt Rinjani as the voice of the Lord rang out far and near. Psalm 29 came alive, literally, for I glimpsed the power of God the Creator.
There were glimpses of beauty - the fog was like a curtain that opened and closed as we made an intense ascend, hiding behind it the show of our lives. We were camping at the crater rim, completely fogged out and unable to see a thing beyond our camp site. But when the fog eventually cleared, oh goodness... the sight to behold was insane. We saw the lake - beautiful and blue, while volcanoes stood guard around it.
If we do not see it, does it not exist? None of the three of us could have known or imagined the beauty behind the fog for all that we could see had been white light. But it is He who knows what awaits the patient when the veil is lifted.
It was a rather foggy and steep descent into the crater lake the second morning, and I was thankful that we could still see much of the path we were going. But there were moments when the fog cleared, and all I could do was stop and gape. Tall, huge rolling mountains stood grandly just beside us, its earthly hues basking in the gold of the morning sunlight. No photograph nor words will ever capture its immensity.
It was majestic and glorious, beautiful and strong; dark strips that lined its sides bore marks of its fury and passion. Yet it was so full of wisdom, tenderness, abundance and love. As we trekked alongside these mountains, I knew I was in the presence of a great King even though I could barely grasp the immensity of it all. And the only thing I could do then was to lift my heart up and worship the Lord Almighty.
When we descended and camped at the crater lake, we got a good view of the 'New Mountain' in the middle of Rinjani's crater lake that formed during an eruption just ten years ago. The new mountain looked right out of a destruction scene from an Armageddon war movie. Almost completely barren and dark, it was a stark contrast to the other mountains that surrounded it. But we know that in decades and centuries to come, the new mountain will behold the same kind of beauty that we were standing on because of that very same devastating material that had spewed out of its spout. This juxtaposition tells a story of renewal out of destruction, which is the thing I love most about volcanoes.