The Work of His Glory

Everyday, all around us, the world is in continuous renewal. Each day begins with a victory. The sun came up again. Each night the earth and its creatures receive rest from the pounding heat of the sun. The ocean above is swirling and mounting and forming, as moisture shifts shapes according to the creative whimsy of God. Thunder and lightning swell up in isolated displays of emotion. Some places it rains light and some places it rains heavy, and still in some the water gently falls in mist, and still in others it gently falls in snow. The ocean below plays upon the shore, mimicking our breath, the coarse, rhythmic draw of air in our lungs, and water lapping over the sand. Yet in some places the ocean smashes against the cliffs, as if in a traumatic rage. Rivers roar, whisper and gently speak as they carve the paths created for them, while rocks dance over each other breaking off in an infinite process that produces millions of tiny rocks, some of which make it back to our homes to live with us forever. 

All of this, of course, for the glory of God. But he is glorified because he made it all for us. All of the lessons we learn from nature, the very nature of nature itself, is that we are reminded who God is. In his infinite power and wisdom and love, he has made nature to remind us of what he is doing and who he is, that he never stops moving, like the moisture in the sky and the waves on the sand and the wind in the trees. He never stops. He is continuously moving for our restoration. 

And when we find ourselves a part of this process, usually when we’re suffering, usually when the pain burns up all the meaningless constructs we so easily and wrongly assign life’s meaning to; when we’re hurting so much we feel, at the very best, just another part of the earth; that’s when we see it. All of creation groans for the restoration of our hearts. All of the earth sings and proclaims and points to the fact that God, of all the things he could be, has of utmost concern the fact that we are creatures in deep pain. And he has designed the whole world to remind us that he is healing our broken hearts. Not only that, but he feels the pain with us.