so i got a new bike 2 days ago. i bought a decent giant rode bike so that a) i don't have to pay quite as much on gas every month, and b) so i can get into shape and maybe ride down japan sometime soon (its my newest goal). i really like it. its only a few steps up from the basic entry level bike, but its mine and its blue.
while i was riding yesterday (only 8 miles because im not in shape) i noticed something i haven't seen in a few weeks. guam is beautiful. ive had a difficult 2 weeks and have been so inwardly focused that i haven't been able to see what is happening around me. the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west. the waves still crash into the reef. the small islands off guams coast still intrigue me. i rode along a coastal road yesterday and tried to breath guam in.
while inhaling and exhaling guam (and tons of oxygen... remember, out of shape) i realized i was beginning to enjoy God as well. I began to remember the psalms and other writings where men and women express their joy with God while looking out over his creation. for the first time in weeks i felt like i was BEHOLDING the glory of the Lord. i didn't just see a wave. i didn't just admire a bird. i wasn't just impressed with a coastline. i enjoyed the God who created them. i communed with the God who tells birds when to hunt and forms waves miles offshore.
as i put the bike in my truck and bought an enormous water and gatorade i felt sad from not looking. i quietly mourned my self centeredness and its reprocussions. i thanked God for his beauty. and i decided to look around.
Psalm 92 says this:
"for you, oh LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands i sing for joy."
and psalm 95 also:
"in his hands are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. the sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. oh let us come and bow down; let us kneel before the lord our maker."
before we are to bow down overwhelmed by his creation we must first see it. to rejoice from his creation we have to look at it. notice the trees in new england's autum yes. notice the miles of clear skies in the west texas towns sure. but let them also cause us to enjoy the God who created it all.
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2 comments:
i'm glad you are really noticing and not taking for granted beauty in creation! aside from awkward conversation i hope the ministry God is letting you be a part of is going good.
Give us, your readers an update on how things are going
This summer we passed through the panhandle on the way back from Road Trip. I remember looking up at about 10:00pm and noticing a thunderstorm positioned about twenty miles away, but still so clear to our eyes because of the shear flatness of plains. I just sat there and watching for something like an hour, as the lightening lit up the entire landscape and the enormous clouds from which they came every minute or so. God always seems so big in the plains. Maybe its because they're so wide, seeming to go on forever and yet when its lightening, light can stretch across them effortlessly, like a enormous blanket. Beautiful. Big. I remember just meditating on God the Father in his massiveness and beauty sort of like you did in Guam. No real insights to this reply, just some solidarity, finding beauty and God halfway around the world along with you. Love you buddy.
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