Can you think of a time when you had a significant encounter with the created world around you? Maybe it was something big, like a vista you came across. Maybe it was something tiny, like a dragonfly perched on a rock by your feet. Maybe it’s something that happens regularly, like watching the sunrise.
Probably many experiences come to your mind. Pick one, and try to go back into your memory of that moment. Think of the series of events that led to this encounter. Remember the exact colors. Think of the smells, the temperature, the textures. Try to bring it back to your mind so that you could paint the picture for someone else. It might help to take a piece of paper and jot these memories down.
Now turn your attention to the designer of what you saw. What feelings, thoughts, and words come to you? Take a minute to write or say these words to God. You can be like David in Psalm 33 and speak to God very specifically about what you saw. He writes of the starry host and the waters of the sea. You could say, “Thank you for picking electric blue to color that dragonfly.”
The Pictures We Painted
In the class on creation care that I’m teaching at church, I started with this exercise. It was fun to hear people immediately start talking when I asked them to paint the pictures for each other.
Around our table, one lady remembered walking down a street in Belgium next to a forest. She was struck by the variety of colors on the other side of the street. The trees, the undergrowth, the grasses, they were all green but so many different shades of green. Another lady spoke of a time when the sky was dark with swallows swirling around and then gradually they all found spots on trees in the park where she was standing. A man told us that sometimes when visitors come to Colorado for the first time he takes them to Wilkerson Pass. As you drive there from Colorado Springs, the road climbs gradually up through an evergreen forest. Near the top of the pass, the man asks the visitors to close their eyes. At the top, the man pulls off into a parking lot. When the visitors open their eyes they see a valley in front of them and on the other side a range of mountains, usually snow-capped, stretching all the way across the horizon. You just can’t drive over that ridge without saying “wow!”
My Wife’s Memories
Later, my wife said that at her table she shared two experiences. The first happened when we took our kids to the Grand Canyon. On our way out of the park we drove along the main thoroughfare and passed a few scenic overlook roads on our left. We decided to take one of them, not knowing where it would lead. We found a parking spot right by the railing on the other side of the viewpoint. As Tamara and I got out of the car, there before us was the canyon in a U shape, with the Colorado river down below. The sight was breathtaking.
The other thing my wife mentioned was our dog’s eyes. Our dog, Cookie, is part Husky. Somehow in the blending of the various breeds her eyes picked up a very light blue color, but it’s divided. One eye is half blue and half brown divided vertically with brown on the outside near her ear and blue on the inside near her nose. The other eye has the same vertical division but brown is on the inside and blue is on the outside. Tamara gets to look into those eyes a lot because she is our main dog walker and when it’s time for the walk Cookie puts her nose on the table or on the bed and stares into Tamara’s eyes intently, pleading with her to go.
The Bird in the Creek
My memory was about watching a bird take a bath. About two weeks ago, I spent some time praying, mainly about the class I was preparing to teach. Even though it was a cold day, I bundled up and went outside. When I got to my normal prayer spot in a grove of trees beside a creek, I noticed that the water was partly iced over but a few places were still running clear. The edges of the ice looked like lace. To my left, four or five birds landed on the snowy bank. One of them jumped down into the water. The bird had gray feathers on its head and back and an orange chest. The water must have been about two inches deep. The bird looked side to side and then became perfectly still for a moment. I thought, “It’s going to take a bath!” Sure enough, it ducked its head under the water, shook off some drops, and then dunked the whole top part of it’s body under. It came up wriggling, flinging water in a shower in all directions. Then it flew off to the opposite bank.
I love watching birds take baths. It seems to me they take such delight in it. Something about how they shake their bodies makes me think they are quivering with pleasure. At that same spot by the creek I once was praying, feeling quite stressed about something. First one bird and then five or six more took baths in front of me. Eventually I thought maybe God was trying to tell me something. Maybe He was saying, “Trust me with the big stuff and be more like these birds. Find joy in the little things.” Ever since that day, watching birds take baths reminds me of that thought.
When we took time as a class to speak out our thoughts to God, my prayer went something like this. “God, I know there are practical reasons why birds take baths, but thank you for how you made them show such delight when they do it. Thank you for the way they wriggle their feathers and shake the water in a spray all around them. Thank you for how you have used this sight to teach me something about trusting you and finding joy in the little things.”
One of the little things we can do each day is to pause for a moment, pay attention to God’s creation around us, and pray prayers like this.
Mine was lying in snow on a very still winter night and watching large flakes land silently. Closest to God that I've ever been, I think.