The Sound You Feel in Your Bones

On a warm February morning in 2024, twelve-year-old Marcus Rivera stood with his family three miles from Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral, watching a SpaceX Falcon Heavy lift off. His father had told him it would be loud. Nothing prepared him.

The rocket cleared the tower in silence — light travels faster than sound. Then the sound wave arrived. It didn't just reach his ears; it hit his chest like a fist. The ground trembled beneath his sneakers. Car alarms shrieked across the parking lot. Marcus later told his teacher, "It wasn't just noise. It was like the air itself was alive."

Seven times in Psalm 29, David describes the voice of the Lord — and he reaches for the most powerful force he knows: a thunderstorm rolling across the mountains of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord breaks cedars. It shakes the wilderness. It strips forests bare. David isn't describing a whisper. He's describing a force so immense you feel it before you understand it.

Yet here is the astonishing ending: this same God who commands the storm "gives strength to His people" and "blesses His people with peace." The Almighty whose voice splinters ancient cedars bends low to steady your trembling hands. The same power that shakes the earth is the power that holds you together.