Tag: Creation

Why Are We Drawn to the Horizon?

Scripture

Sunrises and sunsets are magical somehow. We photograph them and don’t particularly care to get friends and family into these pictures. From a far away perspective, that impressive border between the outermost layer of a celestial body and its sky captures photographers, both professionals and amateurs. With the help of smart phone cameras, we breathe in the majesty of these moments like nothing else.

Is it the lifting of our hearts to worlds beyond, or the beauty of the brightest star, or the idea of heaven that transports us to that dazzling display of color and wonder? It might just be the shadow image that makes our hearts know for certain that Creator God is the accomplished Artist Who knows that we can glimpse His glory a tiny bit more as we take in such scenes.

Why do we reserve Airbnbs with a view? Why do we take our kids to Grand Canyon? Why do we sit on porches looking at mountains? Why is the beach one of the happiest places? The horizon is always magnetic! When on my favorite cruise line, one of my preferred places (actually called “Horizons”) has been the top level lounge that looks out over the ocean facing forward. What a vantage point! The wonder, the expanse, the endlessness, the splendor! These are all attributes that hint at an even more wonderful, magnificent and splendorous Creator God. Really, there is no other rational place for the mind and heart to go.

Psalm 19:1-6 says, “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving His chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.”

God does not hide Himself. He speaks personally through Creation. The universe is a silent sermon all its own. Sunrises and sunsets are the bursts of created majesty that confirm that God is good and that He has much to say about His own goodness. The brilliant colors are only a whisper of His majesty. The rhythm of our days and nights message God’s order and pattern imprinted on Creation. The variety seen on the horizon – no two sunsets alike and no two sunrises alike – persuades us that diversity and uniqueness happen by God’s amazing design.

Making Peace with Dust

Scripture

God chose dust as one of the important particles He used in Creation. You will remember your school days studying particles in science class maybe? Dust may have varying smaller components, but it can be seen almost anywhere, except for the few seconds following a thorough dusting and vacuuming event in your house. Wait 15 minutes and you will see all the dust return!

Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Definitely a cause to respect dust. And then there was that terrible problem of sin in the Garden that brought an even greater reality to dust. Genesis 3:19 says, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” I sometimes wonder what role dust would have had in the event that Adam and Eve didn’t disobey God and roll us headlong into the Fall and its consequences – to dust we will return…

I have lived with allergies all my life. Manageable allergies, but always there. I have seen allergists. My most recent allergist performed the traditional skin tests probably a decade ago. Nothing had changed from my childhood. I tested positive for dust among other allergens like mold, mildew, grasses, pollen, etc. Go figure. I am allergic to the very thing of which I a made. The proof is in the half a box of tissues that I go through on particularly dust-filled days, sneezing and blowing my nose. It is kind of poetic considering the dimensions of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Another fallen thing…

The remedies are impossible to secure. A vacuum cleaner that doesn’t throw out any exhaust dust. Not happening. Industrial strength Hepa filter air purifiers. Not happening. No carpet in the house. Not happening. No forced air heating and air conditioning. Not happening. No stirring up sources of dust. Not happening… I love to quilt and therefore fiber dust flies all over the place when I am cutting and sewing fabric and batting. When the sun shines on the surfaces in my sewing room, the utter storm of dust is revealed. My allergic reaction is, in my imagination, tantamount to breathing secondhand smoke. I will suffer. But granted, it is manageable and I will continue to quilt in the future.

One day this week, I wrestled with a decision to clean up the sewing room dust or not. Resisting my OCD passions, I just whispered to myself “Why don’t you just make peace with dust and move on?” There is comfort in not getting bogged down by the underside of things. Just like the back side of a tapestry, the raw side of a quilt top looks pretty chaotic and ugly. But, the final product is beautiful. There is a pattern in all these metaphors that reveals a pattern that God frequently uses. He purposes to use the ordinary to reveal the extraordinary. God uses the perishable dust of man to release the imperishable new creation that believers will experience in eternity with Him as the result of genuine faith. The new creation. From old to new. From dead to living. From earthly to heavenly. From dust to life after dust. The extraordinary.

Don’t let “dust life” steal your heavenly vision. The Israelites actually longed for the dust and rust of Egypt when they lost their focus on God. Paul Zach has written a song called “Restore Us Again” and one of the verses goes like this: “We longed for Egypt in the wilderness, A kingdom made of dust, Built an idol out of happiness, A paradise of rust.”

I am thanking God today. He is the Only One Who breathes life into our dusty souls. He is the Only One Who chooses to put His spiritual treasures into these jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7) called humans. He is the Only One Who could save us from the kingdom of dust and make all things new in Christ Jesus. He is the Only One Who could breathe eternal life into our otherwise deadly destination without Him. I’m making peace with dust, because for me, it is only temporary.