Man's heart away from nature becomes hard. ~Standing Bear
"Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds....." Psalm 148:7-10
Last evening I went for a walk, I just had to get out.....see a bit of the mountain silhouette against the sky. The Lord originally placed us in a garden, I believe we were meant to gaze on vistas, sit beside still waters. I think when we forget our place in the landscape we go a little bit crazy. We wonder why we get so angry at little things, like when something gets stuck on a clothes hanger and we break the hanger trying to remove it.
That is always a clue to me that I need to go out and get back in touch with a bit of nature......remember my place in it, remember how big God is and how constant. I just get a bit lost sometimes. It strikes me again that the life that most of us are living is unnatural, I really don't think we were meant for all this chaos.
Our world today is filled with noise, movement, activity and stress. Sometimes it just all sneaks up on us,
like it snuck up on me last night. I saw the cars whizzing by the freeway between the houses, but beyond that was the mountain......
Nature is the compass that God uses to set me right. Sometimes it doesn't even take a very big dose. I think when we forget to notice nature, we forget to notice God.
photos from public domain pictures
I really like that quote by Standing Bear, and I find it absolutely to be true. I find God most consistently in nature. In fact, I just got back from an outside walk with my best friend here in Massachusetts -- there's no better tonic than that!
ReplyDelete