Creation speaks in words that we’re meant to hear and understand. His voice whispers. There is a rustling, then an awakening.We listen. We learn. We
look up. Light shimmers and beauty beckons.
Yes, creation speaks about the glory of the Creator. We know
it does. We’ve read his word and, when our eyes have been opened and our hearts softened, we
hear the Voice that spoke light into darkness and life into the emptiness.
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. ~ Romans 1:20
Creation declares the glory of God, speaking words from Him
and about Him and to Him.We see what He made, we hear the words He spoke, and we speak
them back in worship: it is good. What You have made, it is so good.
In the beginning God created by the word of His power, and every day since, creation
speaks, proclaiming the glory of our God. Glory and strength. Light and power. Goodness and beauty.
Not all days are like this one. Some days it’s too hot or
too humid or too cold or too wet or two gray or our hearts are just too plain old dull. But
not this day. This was a day when I’d driven the few hours from Toronto to the Ottawa
Valley, and when I stepped out of the car, hugging parents and sisters that I
loved, and walking around the country farm house where I grew up, my heart
quietly rejoiced in all that He had made.
Life sparkled and His goodness shone bright with a shimmer of
life in the beginning, life before sin broke all that was so very good.
My Pop and Mom have lived in the same country farmhouse for
the past thirty years and they never tire nor stop giving thanks for the peace
and beauty that surrounds them. My Pop walked with me as we delighted
in their home and in God’s creation. He spoke as much to himself as to me: “It’s breathtaking here, isn’t it?”
As we marveled at the peacefulness of the day, I looked out
across one of the fields and saw the tree line that separated the farm field
from the woods. For my entire childhood that tree line had begun with a forest
of dark green pine trees. ‘The Pine Woods’ were always a bit magical, and when
my sisters and I were young, we used to say we were going to live there when we
grew up, each one of us having our own little house tucked away in the evergreens.Today, as I looked out, those once evergreen pine trees were a dull, brittle,
ugly brown.
Dead, and starting to decay.
My Dad reminded me that the evergreens died last summer when there wasn’t enough rain. And so the Pine
Woods, once an almost mystical place of beauty are now barren and ugly.
Paradise, but with visible death.
I answered my Pop’s question. “It is exquisite. All of it.
Sublime, even. Except for that, Pop. It’s a perfect day, except for that.”
“Creation is groaning,
Elisha. All this beauty, but creation is still groaning.”
Creation speaks of the glory of God and creation also groans for the day when there will be freedom from death. We see beauty and we rightly look back to the creation that was so very good. We see decay and we look
forward to the new creation when there will be glorious freedom death.
For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ~ Romans 8:19-21
