When is the last time you saw the milky way? Last weekend we saw the milky way, shooting stars, and a satellite moving through the evening sky and we beheld God’s creation during the daytime. The Psalmist declared God’s handiwork as he looked at the world around him,

The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. (Psalm 19:1)

I had the opportunity to invest several days on the foothills trail with a great group of guys from our local church. Henry David Thoreau, reminds us in Walden, “We need the tonic of wildness . . . At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because they are unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”

Thoreau was not alone in his appreciation of nature. Louis Pasteur discovered, “The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.” Bernard of Clairvaux realized that only in nature can you realize certain truths, “You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.”

Winifred Emma May who wrote under the pen name Patience Strong encourages us to take time and commune with God in nature,

Go into the woodland
if you seek peace of mind–
As this time when Nature’s mood
is gentle, quiet and kind,
When soft winds fan the trembling leaves
about the cloistered glade–
And paths go winding deep into the green
and breathless shade.

Where nothing breaks the silence
of the warm and fragrant air–
But snatches of sweet melody . . .
and wings that rend and tear–
The stillness of the windless dells
where shallow brooklets flow–
And shadows fleck the water
as the sunbeams come and go.

An unseen Presence walks the woods,
a sense of holy things–
Haunts the dim Cathedral aisles;
and every bird that sings–
Is like some morning chorister,
and every breath of air–
Seems to bring the secret murmur
of a whispered prayer.

May you see the Creator in His creation. (Daniel Blomberg took two of these pictures.)

RickAssociate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

Follow me on twitter:  rickhiggins5