'Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain.' (Psalm 2:1)
This morning The Australian featured a satellite image of Iran's nuclear facility. For some years now the world has watched anxiously as Iran has expanded its enrichment capability, at the same time as its President ramps up his anti-Israeli rhetoric.
The Middle East drowns in conspiracies. Conspiracies about land, power....oil.
Nations rise and fall. Nations have corporate personalities. Latent in the psychology of most nations is imperial ambition - the desire to conquer others - economically, militarily or ideologically. The so-called neo-conservatives of the United States seek to export liberal, democratic capitalism abroad. Isalmists seek to export their particular version of shariah law. Nations conspire and people plot.
Ancient Israel was both the subject of and propagators of conspiracies. The Psalmist reminded them and reminds us that all our careful and intricate plans amount to nothing in God's grand scheme. 'The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.' (v. 4) God is god; we're not. The nations, like the earth, is God's footstool. All the might of Empire - Rome, China, Britain, America - cannot compare to the wonder and majesty of God's kingdom with no end.