Is Nature Natural?

some years in the past, as i visited my grand mother in cape coast in ghana, the sea began coaching me to note the supernatural in all i had called natural, to widen my eyes to the arena god has made, to get better a number of the marvel i once had. the ocean quiets me not like something else in creation.

i say advent with deep conviction and reason because it was — all of it anywhere — conceived and carried out through a actual, divine creativeness. as t.m. what we robotically name ‘nature’ is in reality ‘introduction’” (keep in mind the lilies, one hundred).

“the whole thing god has made is preaching, with loudspeakers, cranked excessive and embedded everywhere we turn.”

not anything we come across is purposeless, or gloryless, or without a doubt “natural.” we might also notice the reason and glory greater inside the grander aspects of creation, like oceans, lions, or mountains, however as scripture teaches, even birds and lilies train us about god.

has the herbal global misplaced a number of its wonder on your eyes? have you started out to take with no consideration matters god himself actually breathed into life and sustains with his whispers? does anything god made nevertheless quiet you?
we want infinity

however we had been speaking about oceans. steve dewitt superbly captures how oceans have silenced me:

we need infinity. no longer that we can understand it. but handiest with it does life make sense. that’s why i love taking walks ocean beaches. due to the fact for me, the infinity of the horizon is a glimpse at what the god who made it's far like. (eyes wide open, 128)

almost all and sundry standing before the pacific ocean can sense the thriller in its enormity. even mountains commonly give us a few clear glimpse of wherein they start and give up, however oceans stretch past the frail horizons of our humanity, forcing us to admit how small we clearly are. because the psalms sing, “here is the ocean, outstanding and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, residing things each small and super. there go the ships, and leviathan, that you fashioned to play in it” (psalm 104:25–26) — minnows and manta rays, blue tangs and blue whales, seahorses and exquisite white sharks, all made by using god in order that we might see god.

the sea’s amazing and constant waves wash away our illusions of invincibility, and update them with honesty, before god, about our very own fragility. its depths, past what we can degree, trace at how lengthy and wide are his loving arms (psalm 33:7). its beaches, wherein water gently tickles our ft, betray just how sensible and sovereign is its architect (proverbs 8:29). he makes its currents toss and rage, if handiest so his son ought to quiet them (mark four:39) — and me (isaiah 26:three).

do you still forestall to surprise in any respect god is announcing in what he has made? do you need to start once more?
allow the phrase open the world

we will start developing wider eyes for the sector god has made with the aid of studying nature via what he says all over scripture — in psalms and proverbs, in isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel, and daniel, in the gospels, in particular the phrases of jesus, and in revelation. once more, moore writes,

how often the scriptures urge us to use our sense to perceive and experience the goodness, greatness, and mercy of god, and to analyze some thing of ways we ought to relate to him. sparrows, lilies, mountains, rivers; cash, fallen towers, millstones; human beings marrying, burying their dead, or paying their alms; sounds, tastes, and all manner of sensations — a majority of these and much, tons extra provide us the opportunity for valuable insights into the approaches and could of god. but we are too busy, an excessive amount of in a rush, or too distracted by way of the mundaneness of it all to suppose greater deeply approximately what god can be trying to say to us. (recall the lilies, 119)

the psalms, in particular, are full of streams and valleys, predators and prey, honeycombs and green pastures, solar and moon and stars. try casting off introduction from the psalms, and ask what is lost from the reality and splendor and intensity of what god is announcing. if we handiest saw what the psalmists noticed, we'd get to behold a ways greater of god than we commonly do these days.
stroll thru psalms

whilst the solar rises each morning, god way for that flaming ball of ferocity, a celeb the dimensions of one hundred earths and heated to 10 thousand degrees, to remind us that he is strong, big, reliable, and radiating with joy.

he has set a tent for the solar, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a robust man, runs its route with pleasure. its rising is from the cease of the heavens, and its circuit to the cease of them, and there's not anything hidden from its warmness. (psalm 19:four–6; 84:11)

“not anything we stumble upon in advent is ever purposeless, gloryless, or without a doubt ‘herbal.’”

while we see the celebrities scattered in a clear night sky, an predicted one hundred billion in our galaxy by myself, god desires us to see how precise and private he is. “he determines the wide variety of the stars; he offers to they all their names” (psalm 147:4). why might he call stars? not for his or her sake (they’re stars!), however for ours — so that we would recognize that he knows and attends to each and each one of us, in particular the brokenhearted (psalm 147:three) and the common-or-garden (psalm 147:6).

when clouds move slowly throughout the sky and over our heads, they're now not supposed to be large, unbelievable afterthoughts (or depressing inconveniences, for that count number). they have to draw our attention into heaven and stretch our imaginations, far past them, into the faithfulness of god. “your steadfast love, o lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds” (psalm 36:5).

when we make out a mountain in the distance, or power through them as my circle of relatives did on vacation in advance this 12 months, we're meant to look big shadows of the majesty of god. “wonderful are you,” we sing, “extra majestic than the mountains full of prey” (psalm seventy six:four). our god is stronger than the mountains (psalm 104:32), older than the mountains (psalm 90:2), and greater reliable than the mountains (psalm 46:2–three).

when we listen the rush of a river or circulate, it can inspire us to drink extra deeply from all that god is for us in christ, the properly who quenches every thirst for all time (john 4:thirteen–14). “they banquet at the abundance of your property,” david writes, “and you provide them drink from the river of your delights” (psalm 36:8). the pouring of water between the banks is its own applause to the pleasurable goodness of god. “let the rivers clap their arms; let the hills sing for joy together” (psalm 98:eight).

whilst we come upon a rock too heavy to carry and massive enough to stand on, its weight and energy anchor a deeper fact. where does a poet look for language to explain all that god is for him? “the lord is my rock and my castle and my deliverer, my god, my rock, in whom i take shelter, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (psalm 18:2).

even the deer peeking thru the bushes proclaims how deeply satisfying god is. “as a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, o god. my soul thirsts for god, for the dwelling god” (psalm 42:1–2). and each deer, a few thirty million around the arena, tells us how god protects, strengthens, and stabilizes us thru treacherous circumstances (psalm 18:33).
all advent is preaching

all of that is to say not anything of all we see and enjoy of god in the boom of thunder (psalm 29:three–4), the ruthlessness of lions (psalm 7:1–2), the fragility of sheep (psalm 78:52), the sweetness of honey (psalm 19:10), the power of horses (psalm 20:7), the defenselessness of snails (psalm fifty eight:8), and the lushness of fields after rain (psalm 23:2). the heavens and the earth, and all that fills them, are maintaining the honour of god to us. what may we listen, and spot, and enjoy if we had been inclined to stop and appearance?

“the pouring of water among the banks is its very own applause to the enjoyable goodness of god.”

“created truth brings god’s perfections home to us in methods which might be visible, concrete, and particular,” writes joe rigney. “they keep god’s attributes and characteristics from being mere abstractions, because it’s not possible for us to love a listing of characteristics” (the matters of earth, 65). the whole lot god has made is preaching, with loudspeakers, cranked excessive and embedded anywhere we turn, and but we often have our heads down, scrolling on our telephones, nearly nodding off.

there's hope, constantly hope, for eyes which have grown dim. introduction will never prevent affirming the excellencies of our king, and we will in no way exhaust all that makes him first rate. so, let your self forestall, and watch, and concentrate a little longer before some thing god has made, and anticipate to look some thing supernatural.
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