Standing on a beautiful day last month before Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, one could hardly imagine a better ending to a weekend celebration with family, marking the wedding of one of our grandsons.
Having last seen it from below with my sons several years ago, while together for a few days of golfing in California--and decades before from greater distance when pastoring the Hilmar Covenant Church two hours away--this was my first gaze on it from above. The experience from whatever point of view is truly awesome, however different in intervals of time and space. God’s grandeur puts everything in perspective—sheer heights, massive breadth, and solid depths beyond believing. One cannot fully capture it with a camera. Nor can one fully even in one’s soul. To behold it is simply to worship the Creator--to be drawn by his grandeur and creative power in whatever moment of beholding, from whatever distance or angle.
My late brother Zenos once commented on my pathetic attempts at capturing the Grand Canyon in a slide show. “Jim, there are some things you just have to hold in your heart.” How right he was! Captured by it, as I surely was, it was beyond my capturing.
So it is with all God’s creation, from its farthest reaches in space to its smallest detail on earth. Every part of creation expresses his sovereignty over us. Mountains and hills, flowers and snowflakes are purely of his doing, even as we are ourselves. Eugene Peterson puts it well in his paraphrase of Romans 12: The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and what he does for us, not by what we are and do for him.
I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth (Psalm 121: 1,2).
Having last seen it from below with my sons several years ago, while together for a few days of golfing in California--and decades before from greater distance when pastoring the Hilmar Covenant Church two hours away--this was my first gaze on it from above. The experience from whatever point of view is truly awesome, however different in intervals of time and space. God’s grandeur puts everything in perspective—sheer heights, massive breadth, and solid depths beyond believing. One cannot fully capture it with a camera. Nor can one fully even in one’s soul. To behold it is simply to worship the Creator--to be drawn by his grandeur and creative power in whatever moment of beholding, from whatever distance or angle.
My late brother Zenos once commented on my pathetic attempts at capturing the Grand Canyon in a slide show. “Jim, there are some things you just have to hold in your heart.” How right he was! Captured by it, as I surely was, it was beyond my capturing.
So it is with all God’s creation, from its farthest reaches in space to its smallest detail on earth. Every part of creation expresses his sovereignty over us. Mountains and hills, flowers and snowflakes are purely of his doing, even as we are ourselves. Eugene Peterson puts it well in his paraphrase of Romans 12: The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and what he does for us, not by what we are and do for him.
I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth (Psalm 121: 1,2).
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits (Psalm 103:1).
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