“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 men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
At my daughter’s, almost every morning for the last three weeks, I’ve walked across the lawn and boulders of her back yard, opened the gate, and walked a path around a three hundred acre lake just to the east. Thirty miles west, Long’s Peak, more than 14,000 feet, glows in the early light. Two evenly-matched smaller peaks–Twin Sisters–shore up the north side of the “fourteener.” They are part of the front range that stretches for a hundred and seventy-five miles, as if anchoring not only Colorado, but all of America.
But I’m a water person, myself. The smell of the sea, the ceaseless roll of the waves, the endless view across the ocean speaks God’s poetry. And yet, the mountains also testify.
“I am a rock,” Long’s Peak says, “like your God is a rock.” Rocks endure. These high hills will give witness to the steadiness of the Godhead until the end. Twenty years ago, I ascended another fourteener, Pike’s Peak. The three jet fighters that roared round the rock below us accentuated the height, approaching three miles. The enormous stone formations at the foot–the Garden of the Gods–looked like some giant had arranged boulders in his backyard, like a gargantuan version of my daughter’s landscaping.
But we don’t need to walk the beach or contemplate the heights to perceive God’s character. We can open our own front door. The iridescence of a blackbird’s neck, the yellow center of a daisy, the blue of a cloudless sky–they all reveal God’s power and love. Indeed, we need look no further than the design of our own hand to sense his care. God has given great thought to the making of the earth and its inhabitants so that we can begin to discern his nature by his creation.
Creator-Father, open our eyes to see your character in your handiwork.