Someone Bigger Than Me

I can still remember the first time I discovered what a few minutes in God’s creation can do. I was in grade school and was frantically searching for a misplaced workbook that I needed for class the next day. The more I searched, the more confused and frustrated I became. I was exasperated and on the verge of tears when my mom came into the room. Seeing my dilemma, she suggested I go outside for some fresh air and sunshine. “Perhaps it will give you new energy and refresh your mind,” she said.

My nine-year-old mind couldn’t make sense of that, but I gave it a try anyway. Running down the path through our yard, I breathed in the fresh spring air and basked in the warm sunlight. I stopped to smell the fragrance of newly opened flowers and sat by the lily pond, watching the goldfish dart by as the water tickled my feet. Turning back to the house, I suddenly remembered that I’d left my workbook between the cushions on our living room sofa where I’d been sitting and watching TV the night before. I felt relieved and refreshed. Mom had been right.

I have often applied that childhood lesson to my adult life. When life’s challenges leave me feeling low, when my work feels too demanding and the pressure too crushing, I love to take a few minutes with nature. Whether it’s a few potted plants on a window sill or a breathtaking view from a mountaintop, there’s just something about God’s amazing handiwork in the diverse and colorful world around me that refreshes my mind and renews my spirit.

It’s wonderfully reassuring to remember that, like His wonderful creation, my life is in the hands of someone bigger than me.

“God is the supreme artist. God looked at His creation as it progressed and saw it was good; when He had completed it, He saw that it was ‘very good.’ The Great Artist was evidently much pleased with His world. It was a world filled with wonderful objects, shapes, and movements, a world abundant in rich colors like those of the rainbow and the rose, rich textures like those of beaver fur and magnolia leaves, rich odors like those of the quince and the honeysuckle, rich sounds like those of thunder and running streams, and rich tastes like those of watermelons and chocolate.”
—Clyde S. Kilby

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Colossians 1:16 ESV – For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

1 Chronicles 29:11 ESV- Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

Exodus 14:14 ESV – The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.