In Our Midst

We have been hiking our way through a few national parks, trekking through the wonders of God's creation.  We are amazed by the intricate design of the hand of God, each kind of tree and plant and animal interconnected and dependent on each other.  Not an eco-system that just happened, but a universe designed that way. The wilderness is never barren, but embedded with beauty around every bend in the trail. The awe that is stirred up within us is simply a call to worship, to enjoy the creation and worship the Creator.

A snapshot cannot capture the immensity.  Nor words can describe it.  One day as we ascended a trail to some alpine lakes, we could go no further because of deep snow.  We had to turn around.  The hike was not for naught, nor a failure on our part.  Because before we headed back down, I looked up through the trees and saw the blueness of sky that defied words in any language.  It was not even the color or beauty that energized me, but the glory of God breaking through and taking my breath away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was not a matter of trying to see the divine in this, but realizing His magnificence face to face, His Presence in our midst that cannot be explained away, His fingerprints that say, "Do not fear.  I am with you." All along.  In our midst.  Even in this.

May we see life not just a series of rolling hills, ascents and recoveries, deep gullies to scramble through, unmarked trails and trials that we have not chosen nor understand, nor the steepest mountain paths that never seems to end, but God's redeeming in the present tense.

As author Wallace Stegner described more than sixty years ago, "We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.  For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope."

The geography of hope --I love that phrase-- reassures us that God is, and He has spoken.  Hope is not wishful thinking, but that on which we can stake our lives. He is God.  And we are not.  God is here among us.  The immensity of the sky uncovers His steadfast love and grace toward us, no matter what.

O LORD, our Lord,

   how majestic is Your name

   in all the earth.

                   Psalm 8.1 

 

As we walked through a sanctuary of mammoth sequoia trees, I thought about the third day of creation when God was bringing forth the beauty of this earth.  And as He was forming the trees, those huge pillars of every type that defy gravity, when He was designing the sequoias, He must have said, "Now watch this!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter where we go today, or what we do, walking through the ordinary and familiar, or through a wilderness which we do not know, may we be aware of God's wonders embedded in this day.  As blatant as the mammoth sequoias, may we not just see His wonders way off someday in the distance or in the rear view mirror way in our past, but realize His Presence in our midst.  He is bigger still.

Even today, God says to each one of us,

       "Now watch this."