Have you ever wondered why God made the world so beautiful, so impressive, so awe-inspiring? Why did He fill the night sky with sparkling stars? Why did He invent the hush of dawn, the glory of the sunset? Why give us the superlative artistry of the autumn tree, the lacy beauty of a snow-covered landscape?
I think the reason is that He wanted to inspire His highest form of creation, humanity, to be big. We humans are peculiar beings. We have a capacity for greatness and an equal capacity for littleness. We can be very good and we can be very bad. But God longs to be among us. We are, after all, made in His image (Genesis 1:26).
And God gets at us in two ways. He gave us a message in two forms. One is in the words of the Gospel, a hopeful message about what we can be. “So then, if anyone is in Christ, that person is part of the new creation. The old things have gone away, and look, new things have arrived!" (2 Corinthians 5:17, The Daily Life Bible).
The other is in the environment in which God placed us, showing us the glory and the wonders of the world. “He has made everything beautiful” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Nature can teach us many lessons, but one of the most important is this: Things change. Nothing is permanent. Seasons come and go. Plants bloom and fall to seed. Storms crash across the horizon…and then the sun comes out. The circumstances of life in which you find yourself at the moment are not permanent. They only seem that way. “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).
So, don’t get the notion that, when you are blessed with everything good and pleasant, things will necessarily remain so. The Bible reminds us that “man is born for trouble” (Job 5:7). You must be ready and I must be ready, for we never know when a storm will come. And when it does come, we must not be discouraged, for always we can be assured that storms are limited in extent and there are better days ahead.
This is a necessary philosophy if you are to live in this world with courage and with skill. When we take the big, panoramic view we realize that. Jesus has promised us, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
Don’t let your thoughts deteriorate into little ones. You may have yielded yourself to that kind of thinking–mad about this, discouraged about that, low, defeated. Lift up your eyes unto the hills right this minute, and you will lift up your thoughts also.
Lift up your mind to the high, elevated panorama of Almighty God. And remember, you are to think big and act big. Live on a big scale. Look BIG at life.
How can nature inspire you today?
