We are on a year-long journey at the Deer Run Church of Christ of focused learning and listening to God.  We have begun a theme for the next twelve months of “A View From The Top:  What Does God Say?”.  I am excited about what God is doing, and will do, as we make a serious effort to listen to Him and to put into practice His directions in His timing.  Part of this approach involves a daily text and questions for each participant to study and consider.  Much of my writing over the next year on this blog will likely be thoughts and responses to what God is saying to me through these daily texts and questions.  You can follow along with the texts and questions at deerrunchurch.wordpress.com.  . . . Now, back to the blog.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.  Romans 1:20

I love the outdoors.  There is something about wandering through a forest, hiking a mountain, canoeing a river, walking a sandy beach, or gazing out over a flowering meadow that makes me feel much closer to the very presence of God.  Not that I believe that God’s presence is greater at these places, I’m just more sensitive to it in some locations than others.  I give more thought to the unseen qualities of God when I am surrounded by His handiwork than at other times. 

Paul writes to the Romans, and to us, and states that God has made His invisible qualities clearly seen so we have no excuse for ignoring God’s existence.  His invisible qualities have been on display since the creation of the world.  God says that if we would just look around and observe, it is impossible to miss His eternal power and divine nature.  Yet we do miss it, don’t we?  Or we see it but don’t connect it to having anything to do with us.

We see God’s eternal power and we trust that the sun will rise each morning and finish it’s work through the day before setting.  Actually we are “enlightened” now and recognize that isn’t even a true statement.  The sun is stationary and continues it’s work even after the earth rotates and the sun appears to set from where we are.  Yet, how often do we question the Son rising with us each day and finishing His work in us through the day before we settle for the night?  Yet, His divine nature, visible in creation, is true. . . . He is stationary, always at work to bring warmth and light into our life as He draws us to himself.  Even when we “rotate” away from Him, He still shines and continues His work as God.

While science has gained great understanding of “how” many things work, they come short in trying to explain “why”.  They may be able to explain the mechanics of how the sun produces light and heat, but they can’t explain how it started and why.  We may understand the process of green plants taking our “exhaust” — carbon dioxide — and combine it with energy from the sun to produce oxygen.  Understanding at some level how that happens isn’t the same as knowing why trees do that in the first place.  I love the outdoors and I love God’s creation because the more we study and understand parts of how it all works, the more I realize just how incredible is God’s eternal power and divine nature.  At times I even marvel at the faith of the athiests and evolutionists.  . . . Misplaced faith, but an incredible faith it must take to believe that all that is and exists just happened without a designer, creator, intelligent, and involved God.

May you and I observe creation around us and may our faith in God, who displayed His invisible qualites through creation, grow stronger as we trust Him to make us a new creation.