Of all the places Peggy and I have traveled, I would have to include Northern Michigan among the most beautiful. Sunsets over Lake Michigan are spectacular. Auras of red cradle a yellow sun as, dimming, it dutifully descends into the horizon’s waters. Each cloud is a palate of pastels, its hues ever blending in constant change. There is no silence, though it seems so. A breeze in the ear, the call of the gull, a child’s voice in the distance, muffled by wind and wave—this is the soft soundtrack in nature’s gallery where, though the Painter’s canvas never changes, His evening masterpieces are never the same. We can only marvel, “Where there is art, there must be an Artist.”
In last week’s post, we beheld in awe the authority in God’s words, “The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created.”1 Then who but God could possibly have conceived also of this: the creation He spoke into being now speaks His being to us? David pens to lyrics, “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 reveal knowledge.”2 Creation proclaims God, yet in a language only our soul can understand. David continues, “[The heavens] have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”3 Mountains declare God’s power, and forests profess His beauty. Skies and seas laud His vastness; their storms roar His righteous fury. Surely, God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”4
Speaking into being that which, in turn, speaks God’s being to us—this is intentional, this is purposeful, for it proclaims our value to Him. David reflects, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”5
Do you feel lost in the universe, a small, insignificant speck? Nothing could be further from the truth, for just as God spoke us into creation when we were nothing, so now He speaks through creation to show us we are something. Only we were made in His image, and He goes too great lengths to tell us.
“He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord God Almighty is his name.” Amos 4:13 NIV
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.”6 Amen.
1 Psalm 33:6 NLT
2 Psalm 19:1-2 NIV
3 Psalm 19:3-4 NIV
4 Romans 1:20
5 Psalm 8:3-6, emphasis added
6 Psalm 92:4
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