Right after High school I attended a Bible school that lies in the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. Every opportunity I could get I would grab my bike and ride along the snake-like country road to climb the trails in a nearby park. I hiked up to the top…or close too it if people were there…and choose a rock to place myself and backpack so I could simply listen to silence. Then pray. I’d even sing praise songs as loud as I could to the swaying trees and slapping streams. As the day would gray toward night, the largeness of this creation began to close in and I would rush home, refreshed from the time.
In the Lord’s Providence, I grew up in a camper family that explored natural parks, campgrounds, and many creation wonders. I have traveled to numerous continents and seen climates from glaciers to rushing waterfalls in tropical rain forests, from the rocks of Petra to the islands of Thailand. I have eaten food from all over the world – injera bread in Ethiopia, fruit in Thailand, sushi in japan, falafel in Israel, to chocolate in Switzerland. I once petted a tiger in Asia and dodged lions and bull elephants in the Serengeti. Yet even in all this I have barely beheld the beauty of God’s creation.
Oddly enough, one of my most powerful encounters with God’s creation happened while I was visiting Louisville, Kentucky after living in Thailand for a number of years. When I got out of the car for the first time it was at night. I looked up into the sky and asked my future husband, “do you hear that?” “Silence!” No noisy city or light pollution. I could see the starry sky that I grew up under. I was in awe and invigorated. I was quietly enjoying the stars that millions of others have seen since God threw them into the sky. I was smelling the fresh air that the beautiful trees provided by taking in our carbon dioxide and giving us back the precious oxygen we need. Every sense God has given us to engage in His creation was being stimulated. The only response that seemed right was worship. Not worship in the creation, but worship in the Creator who fashioned this world and Universe with more vibrant colors, tastes, sounds, textures, and aromas that we won’t truly appreciate until heaven. He could have only made one kind of everything, but instead he created a wheel of sensational beauty. And all of it is according to His order and wisdom.
Sweet sister, not all of us will be able to experience all the varieties of God’s creation, yet look around you. Look at the eyes of your loved one, stroke your dear pet’s fur or scales, look up at the moon and stars at night, slow down and savor your food and drink, take a walk at sunset, buy a National Geographic and be marveled at God’s creativity. Let your kids wake up your sense of wonder at an ant line, butterfly wings, and dirt! And then…THEN, lift up your hands to thank and Praise God for these precious gifts. And know that God’s greatest creation, you and me, was so precious to Him that He became like us, took on our form lived the life perfectly, so He could die the death we deserved in order to save His most exquisite creation. He not only went to great lengths to let His creation experience an effervescent world, He died to save it.
Maltbie D. Babcock penned it best with this great hymn:
This is my Father’s world,
And to my list’ning ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father’s world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father’s world:
Oh, let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world,
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.
Your sister in Christ,
Colleen