“God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good… Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” – Genesis 1:9, 10, 31
From the beginning, our environment was good. We were created for goodness sake from the hand of our good Creator. “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” John 1:3
The world God created provided every living thing with optimal surroundings. Beauty filled even the smallest, simplest acts of nature. In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard relates such an act. At first glance, it appears to be another mundane occurrence, but something about the experience resonates with wonder…
“About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star. The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second through empty air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail and so floated onto the grass.”
She concludes, “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
Adam and Eve were there, eyewitnesses to God’s beauty and grace revealed every day in their environment. God wants us to be there too. By experiencing the wonders of His creation we can reconnect to our Creator and live a life permeated with marvels.
