From the blog:

Done for a Reason

by Al Parker•8 months ago

My wife, Amy, and I often sit along the creek behind our house. There, we talk of things of life and often of the wonders we see through the season changes. Gossimers glint in the beams of sun, walnuts have more open canopies than the other trees, a cuckoo calls and another answers from afar, the mosses on the side of a tree show a bright red halo in the sunlight from behind them, and on and on the wonders wander. For each of these, our God can say, “Yep, I did that”.

• The sweet desire I have for her - “yep, I did that”
• Calming of spirit from the sound of the stream - “yep, I did that”
• Dripping of dew from the high sycamore leaves - “yep, I did that”
• Bird song distilled into a concert -”did that too”
• Continuous seeing and hearing and learning - “meant for that to happen”

You see, the stuff of wild that we enjoy wasn't just formed by accidental mutations and the kill or be killed notion of natural selection. How could beauty come about from such cosmic calamities? How could the senses that we know in peaceful places be somehow linked to primal nightmares of escaping the food chain for one more day? God walked in the garden once, David sang praises on distant sheep pastures, and Jesus stole away to quiet places. These things of earth are here for us to enjoy and to thank the Creator for. The chief end of man (according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism) is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That's what gentle spring rains and flash passes of Kingfishers are for.

Ever watch the explosive wonder of a child with the sight of a new butterfly landing on her? The wide-eyed shock when hearing a nearby owl hoot? The horselaugh while seeing a puppy clumsily tripping over itself? The surprised shock of a fishing bobber going under? Let those be our lessons. We get old and forgetful and are no longer under the whispers of wonder. In our so called maturity, we can become hard to things that ought to be seen as glorious. Thinking we know it all or have seen it all, we ignore the new wonders and the new ways of seeing in the old ones.

But God has made a world... no, an entire universe of wonders for us to be constantly in awe of. Please, don't be so busy about your work, your agenda, your schedule, your fixations to allow for those moments of awe. We cannot see God face to face (yet). We cannot carry on discussions with him as we would sometimes like to. But we can see what He put here for us to know something about Him through. We can be alert to those little reminders of His glory. And when we do, I am convinced that He smiles upon us and says, “did that for you”.