Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated ”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, August 3, 2025
by Dr. Kimberly Leetch, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: This vision of wonder and worship invites us to consider how we live in a world we too often try to diminish.
This vision in Revelation is a scene of mystery and wonder, of magnificent creatures intermingled with human-like figures, all gathered for a common purpose—to worship the One seated on the throne. The vision is specific in its splendor and at the same time wild with images of fantasy and mystery.
Our language, our culture, and even our religion is too often used to contain, and as a result diminish, the wonder and mystery of the things of God. Even while this passage describes things we do not have on earth, we can still envision the things taking place because of the words used to describe them. It is as if our drive to describe the indescribable limits our imagination of what God is and the things of God can be.
This is to say that our nature tends to desire to diminish and contain that which cannot be contained. If we can label a thing, we can understand it, and if we can understand it, we can control it.
But the things of God cannot be controlled. We do not have the ability to control or contain the weather, the actions of others, the systems and societies in which we live (often without awareness), or time. Yet we still strive to contain and control all of these.
What might it look like if, instead of trying to control and diminish the things that are fantastical, wonder-filled, and mysterious, we let go and let these things sweep us up? Might we be compelled simply to be consumed with a desire to worship God with all that we are? Might we spend our time and energy filled with a desire to uplift each other rather than control each other? Let this mysterious vision offer us a glimpse into the things we will never understand and control, but in which we certainly can live and breathe, and offer us permission to celebrate and worship with everything that we are.
