John Muir at the Top of the Douglas Fir

In December 1874, a ferocious windstorm tore through the Sierra Nevada with such force that the ancient trees bent like grass. Most people ran for shelter. John Muir climbed a tree.

The naturalist scrambled to the crown of a hundred-foot Douglas fir and clung there, swaying in wild arcs as winds exceeding a hundred miles per hour roared through the Yuba River valley. He later wrote that he could hear each species of tree making its own distinct music — the pines a deep bass, the firs a silvery hum, the oaks a low grinding tone. Rather than terror, Muir described an overwhelming sense of worship. He was listening to something ancient and magnificent, something that dwarfed every human accomplishment.

The psalmist David understood that impulse. In Psalm 29, he catalogues the voice of the Almighty thundering over the waters, snapping the cedars of Lebanon like matchsticks, shaking the wilderness of Kadesh until the deer give birth in fright. Seven times David names "the voice of the Lord," each time more powerful than the last. And yet the psalm does not end in devastation. It ends in blessing: "The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace."

The same voice that splits the oaks and strips the forests bare is the voice that whispers peace over His children. The God whose power shakes the wilderness is the God whose gentleness steadies your soul.