The Canyon Rim She Almost Walked Past

In 2019, park ranger Sarah Gonzalez noticed something troubling at Grand Canyon National Park. Visitors would arrive at the South Rim, glance over the edge for thirty seconds, snap a selfie, and walk back to the parking lot. Some never even removed their earbuds. They had driven hours across the Arizona desert to stand before one of the most staggering displays of creation on earth — and they barely looked.

Gonzalez started a program called "Five Minutes of Stillness," inviting visitors to simply stand at Mather Point without their phones and let the canyon speak. People who participated reported something unexpected: tears, laughter, a sudden awareness of how small they were and how ancient the rock beneath their feet. One woman said, "I've been to the canyon three times and never actually seen it until now."

Psalm 95 is God's invitation to that same kind of seeing. The Psalmist calls us to come before the Almighty with joyful songs — not because God needs our applause, but because worship cracks open something calcified in us. "In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him." The grandeur is already there. The question is whether we will stop long enough to behold it — or whether, as the psalm warns, we will harden our hearts the way Israel did at Meribah, standing before the living God yet somehow missing Him entirely.

The canyon doesn't shrink because we refuse to look. Neither does God.