Take The Time To Be In Awe Of God’s Creation

Word-of-the-Day: ‘(1) Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (2) This is what the ancients were commended for. (3) By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.’ (Hebrews 11:1-3)

That great fictional theologist, Ferris Bueller, once stated, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”  While the character of Mr. Bueller used this philosophy to skip school, entice his girlfriend and his ‘BFF’ into mischief throughout the city of Chicago, and aid in the destruction of a classic Ferrari roadster, all sinful and ungodly actions, his philosophy on life wasn’t exactly flawed.

Ecclesiastes 3 tells us there is a time for everything, including taking the time to relax, reflect, and see what is going on around you – including looking at God’s Creation and admiring His handiwork in all that He made.  Most of the time, we look at what is around us with an eye toward either our needs or our desires, and categorizing them in ‘this matters’ or ‘this doesn’t matter’, and move onward, without taking the time to examine that which in front of us is something God made from His Almighty power and thought.

Often, I go about my daily business and see things that, in that moment, are not important to me in terms of satisfying my daily life or needs.  I have never taken the time to identify most species of trees or flowers, for example, as that is not important to me, so when someone has a bouquet of flowers or has flowers planted in a garden bed, I usually see them and say, ‘nice flowers’ to be polite, and go onto the task at hand.  They could be tulips, lilacs, or ragweed, I wouldn’t know and honestly, wouldn’t care.  In Florida, we predominately have pine trees and oaks, with the occasional cypress.   Other trees we may have are simply, to me, ‘trees’.

I can identify other trees as we go north along the East Coast, as I grew up in Pennsylvania, such as birch, maple, willow, and spruce; but I couldn’t tell you the difference between a ‘Colorado Blue Spruce’ from some other form of spruce, or what a walnut tree looks like other than when a walnut falls and lands next to me, and I then look and think, ‘a walnut, I must be under a walnut tree’, as I keep walking.

We get caught up in our daily tasks, in order to get things done, and we don’t take the time to actually ‘see’ what we see, and think of them from the perspective of ‘this is what God created’.  The wonder of Creation escapes us as we go through our day, even as we prepare for Godly things (like preparing a Life Group lesson, or writing a devotional blog).  We don’t take the time to think of the splendor and the depth of what God has made for us, to enjoy and to be in awe of.

Paul, in his letter to the Messianic Jews, the first of many people to follow Jesus, he provides similar advice as Mr. Bueller’s in Hebrews 11, except his take isn’t for self-gratification but in the context of Faith in Christ.  Paul is imploring the Jews, and us, to view things not just in the context of the physical presence of things, but to view them in the context of Faith, that God created these things – not through simply physical generation but by His creative omnipotent and omniscient power.

We know that flowers and trees germinate through pollen and pistils to form seeds, which fall onto the ground and begin the growing process; the roots grow into the ground, the trunk and branches grow up out of the ground and the seedling becomes the plant.  But we who are Faithful should also contemplate that God created the plants, along with the animals and us humans, not through a seed or seedling but completely from His thoughts.  When the question comes up, ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’, the answer is neither; it was God’s conception of the chicken, how the chicken would look, how it would eat, and how it would reproduce, that came first.

This is what we don’t see; the how and why God created such things.  When we consider God’s Creation in this context, we should be assured in Faith that God is always there, in the forefront and the background of life.  He is not seen by our eyes, but through our Faith is known to be with us and that which He created.  Paul states we should in Faith have confidence in Him and what He promises us.  We are assured by Genesis 1:1, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’  He created all things, He meant for it to be, and therefore should be revered as His handiwork.

Don’t fear taking the time to admire the flowers in a park, the animals in a zoo, or the fauna in an arboretum.  Be in awe of the creation of life; a newborn child in the arms of a mother, a litter of puppies yipping or a basket of kittens mewing for food and attention.  Young men, gain the wisdom of the old guys around you, and young women, learn the skills the older women can teach you.

Keep alive the wonderment that is life!  Just don’t waste it on frivolous pursuits as Ferris did (although admittedly watching a game in Wrigley Field isn’t necessarily a bad thing for an afternoon), but use that wonderment to extol the glory of God and be amazed at His great design!