July 31, 2017

"Through what has been made"

Off my son went, out the front door, on an errand to check the mail. When, after a minute or two, he hadn’t returned … I made my way over to the front door myself, wondering what had happened to him. And through the doorway I saw him, standing stock still in the grass, staring up into the trees. He’d sighted a woodpecker, and the mail mission had been put on hold while he watched and wondered!

A few days earlier, spotting a tiny little moth (maybe the size of my pinkie nail), I had pointed it out to some of the children. And this same son then drew near to this little creature, and came back with a report that unfolded something like this: ‘Dad, that whitish, bluish, grayish moth had a black stripe down the edge of each wing, and a yellow stripe across the end of each wing, and his antennas were folded back.’

And I think this is a picture of health – not the health of the moth, I mean … but of the boy observing it! And not only health for a young lad, with his boyish interest in nature … but his wonder is a portrait of what would be healthy for us all! For does not the Scripture tell us, concerning our God, that “since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made” (Romans 1:20)? One way we understand God is by observing “what has been made” by Him – woodpeckers, moths, foxes, cumulonimbus clouds, magnolia trees, oceans, streams, human beings, and so on! And the closer we look – at the stripes on a moth’s wings, or the habits of a woodpecker, or the intricacies of a honeysuckle blossom – the more of God’s glory, wisdom, and creativity we will be able to admire!

And so maybe take this as a challenge for the next week (or longer)! Try, each day, to notice – and to really spend a few minutes observing – something that God has made. Maybe it will be the bark on a tree, or perhaps the details on a mushroom, or even the pattern of your own fingerprint. Take the time to observe such things … and to consider what they teach you about the One who made them! And, if you know (or can find) some science that explains in more detail what you’re looking at, and why it has been crafted as it has, then you’ll be able to marvel at the Maker all the more!

And make sure you do marvel at Him! Don’t just say to yourself: ‘Isn’t this peach amazing? Isn’t that butterfly marvelous?’ … but, ‘Isn’t the Maker of these things amazing? Isn’t God marvelous, and grand, and creative, and wise, and powerful, and good to have created such a marvelous thing?’

“Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made”. Let us be sure that we see … and that we praise!

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