God Has Smiled On Me
I walked out the door to head to work last week and a smile immediately came across my face. There wasn’t something special left in my yard or on my car. No, the thing that made me smile was the temperature. It felt 20 degrees cooler than it had the day before. I always love the changing of the weather and the first good cool day of fall. I live in Alabama and the cool spell will give way to some more heat, then cool, then heat, then….well you get the picture. But shorter days speak to the changing of the season and it made me smile.
One reason I love the fall is because I spend a little more time in the nature that I love during that time. The time in the woods gives me some much needed alone time and some hours of reflexion that are hard to get in the middle of the crowded concrete jungles of the city and the hectic house full of kids. It reminds me of how Jesus “often withdrew to desolate places to pray” (Luke 5:16). I spend a lot of time praying and even studying while I keep a keen eye out for the stealthy deer that roam the Alabama forests. I usually spend more time watching them than I actually do taking shots at them. The whole process reminds me of the circle of life that God put into action way back in Genesis 1 and 2.
This week, in a Thursday morning Ladies class that I teach in our local congregation finished exploring the Creation in Genesis 1. I know, I’m not a lady but they asked if the preacher would do this class several years ago and I haven’t lost the starting position yet. Anyway, God’s abilities are on full display in Genesis 1 and it leaves us in awe of the things he created. As Paul says in Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” The Creation around us is the greatest testimony to God’s existence if we will simply take the time to look. In the Creation account, everyday He would comment that what He created “was good” (12, 18, 25). Yet, at the end of the Creation He saw that “it was very good” (31).
That was because He had reached the apex of the creation. The formation of man was the crescendo! Everything had been made for man. The animals, the birds, the plants, the earth, etc. And the very peak of the creation is crowned with a being that was made in His image. We were made with a soul—eternity has been set in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We were made to create, as he created. We were made to love, as He first loved us. Unlike any other creature we are made to be like the Creator. It would be for this created one that the Creator would choose to become the created so that the created could return cleansed and whole to the Creator. I know that sentence was a lot to take in. Read it again if you must.
So the cool weather, the changing of the seasons, and the nature that I spend time in reminds me of the Creator. It reminds me of how much He loves me and how much He loves you. After the fall of mankind He spent the rest of time as we know it trying to reconcile us back to Him and accomplished that through His Son. So I supposed that I smile at the weather because God has smiled on me.
Ben