I cannot remember a time when creation did not testify to me of God’s power, love and glory. My first plane ride,at a young age, allowed me to sit above the marshmallow clouds to view the earth below: a surreal feeling of gazing down on creation. My five year old mind dreamed of opening the window to break off a piece of cloud, and drink the moisture of the universe. As in drinking from the cup of God’s goodness.
From earliest memories, Animals played a an intricate role in my life; watching their beauty, learning their habits, and recognizing the cycle of life. Watching army ants line up, two by two in formation, following the queen, to trek across the African bush was just as amazing as gazing upon an elephant cooling itself in the Zambezi River, sucking water into his trunk to squirt over his back, providing relief from the hot African sun.
The ocean has never ceased to amaze me, it’s newness crashing upon the sand with every ebb and flow of the tide. Hours have been spent watching and listening to the waves, lost in their wonder. The sand flows between my fingers and gently caresses my feet; a natural pedicure from long hours of abuse.
Who hasn’t laid with me on a hot summers evening to gaze up at the sky, counting the stars and searching for the constellations in faraway galaxies?
In Psalm 19, King David voiced my thoughts, years before the cells of my body were created.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
et their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
I see God in all around me; the animals, cups of water in the sky, the ocean, flowers and trees. All He has created brings him glory and rains down joy into my soul, washing away the cares of this earth.
Yet I do not fail to acknowledge, according to 2 Corinthians 5:17, that I too am God’s creation. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” I am made by God, a flower testifying of His love and power.
I love overgrown bushes and trees and it greatly disturbs me prune them, cutting them back to bare their souls. Yet, it is in this process, that new branches spread out and produce new buds, soon to blossom into open flowers. And if I search deep into their open cavity, I see God at the core of their universe.
I am grateful that I am God’s creation, that even though he may have to cut me back, painfully exposing the marrow at the center of my stature, it is in doing so that He allows me to bloom and blossom once again. Just as the heavens declare the glory of God and the work of His hands, so I pray that I may declare His glory and His work in me. And as creation’s voice goes out into all the earth, to the ends of the world, may my voice declare God’s praise and salvation as far as it can be heard.
Sometimes, as in verse 3, the heavens have no speech, they have no words, and no sound is heard from them. Those are the times that I pray I will be like the flower opening up for the world to gaze upon. And if one dares to look deep inside the cavity of my silent soul, I pray they see God.
For just as creation declares the glory of God, I pray that I, as His creation, will proclaim the work of his hands.
As much as I am thankful for God's creation, I am grateful that He looks beyond the thorns and dried petals to see a heart that truely desires to reflect His love, goodness and mercy.