_Prayer on the Roof

On the roof I find much peace. On the roof I find a place of retreat. What difference is found on the roof for me? What difference between there and the private quiet room? The locked door of the prayer room? Four walls that reverberate the beatings of my heart? Let me recount, I too hope to see why indeed I chose the roof as the place for me.

Is it perhaps a mere mystical preference? A toying of my own mind convincing my heart of things not there? But if I would compare the time on the roof with my time in the room, it would be as if comparing two different worlds. The room, with the locked door, the blackened lights, the bedside floor, these evoke my soul to speak through the strings of silence finding my way to Heaven’s court. But in the room, the silence betrays me often. My thoughts linger and my heart often wanders. My eyes and ears are bound to silence’s grasp, and times come by when silence would bring them through the road of random memory and imagination.

But on the roof in prayer? The skies demand my eyes be lifted up and behold the manifold excellencies of God and be drowned in awe and wonder. The cool breeze of the air reminds me of God filling the earth with His glory. Every blade of tree and grass arrests my soul and grips me to worship. The moon and the stars, the clouds in the air, the breeze of the wind through the leaves of the trees, these and more, shout and cry out to me in increasing intensity:

May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works,
who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!
I will sing to the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the LORD.
Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
Praise the LORD!

—Psalm 104:31-35

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze.

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, My God, how great thou art!

O, when I see ungrateful man defiling
This bounteous earth, God’s gifts so good and great,
In foolish pride God’s holy name reviling
And yet, in grace, his wrath and judgment wait.

When burdens press, and seem beyond endurance,
Bowed down with grief, to him I lift my face,
And then in love he brings me sweet assurance,
My child! for thee sufficient is my grace.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!