Ask any member of our National Park church family what one of our greatest blessings is and you’ll very likely be met with an answer regarding our wonderful children. Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:3 that if we want to enter His kingdom we must become like little children; and after a week of our annual Camp Create, it’s easy to see why.
Every day last week 150+ children came to camp ready to sing, play, create and learn about the wonder of God! And there is no wonder in God’s good creation more beautiful than the innocent heart of a child! Ephesians 2:10, our verse for the week, says “For we are His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that He prepared in advance for us to do.”
The kids learned about many man-made masterpieces, the new 7 wonders of the world, incredible works crafted by God’s most incredible masterpiece, mankind. They were taught through all the different activities and lessons about the blessing we’ve been given to co-create alongside our great Creator, and participated in good works through serving our community here in Hot Springs. The eagerness we saw in these kids to serve and create and share the love of Jesus were such beautiful reminders of the ways we should become like children.
We hope and pray that the kids walked away from camp focusing on the wonder of creation and how wonderful God is. Five times in the first chapter of Genesis we have the refrain ‘And God saw that it was good’ (vv. 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), and once at the end of God’s work of creation, ‘it was very good’ (v. 31). Since He created it, the earth and everything in it belongs to God.
In the Book of Job chapter 38, Job has gone through a bit of a rough patch….
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. Listen to what all He said. He is going to call attention to how wonderful all His creation is. It’s as if God even stands back still and sings. Look at it…it is so good!
2 “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me."
So God is going to question Job. At which point Job is probably thinking, “Is there another option?”
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone— 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, 9 when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, 10 when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?
12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, 13 that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?"
I love vs. 16.
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? (Doesn’t that just sound like heavy metal lyrics?) 18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.
19 “What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? 20 Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? 21 Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!" (This is God being sarcastic. How great is that?)
He continues in chapter 38.
And then he moves to talking about the Animal Kingdom in chapter 39.
“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?"
And my personal favorite in Chapter 39:
vs. 5 “Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied its ropes?"
And then in vs. 13. This is just pure gold…
“The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, though they cannot compare with the wings and feathers of the stork. 14 She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, 15 unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. 16 She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain, 17 for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. 18 Yet when she spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider."
Essentially, God says… the stork is one dumb animal.
But when she spreads her wings to fly…. NOW… THAT… is something to behold.
I want you to notice this.
There is no point to the wild donkey. And that is the point.
Check out the wild donkey.
Who let it go free? Why does it laugh at the commotion in town?
I don’t know.
Exactly… exactly.
Lightning and snow and storehouses…
Well, what is the point of all of this?
There is no point, and that is exactly the point.
Just wonder at it!
Have you considered the ostrich?
And how about the stork? It’s dumb as a rock. But have you seen it fly?
It’s almost as if God just gets excited and finds pleasure in the randomness and beauty of Creation.
So God goes on endlessly about these creatures.
He goes into great detail surrounding the make-up of these animals.
God takes great joy and delight in physical creation, just because it is.
God loves Creation!!!! It is good.
He will not fail to talk about it. He will continually talk about the joy of it.
In Proverbs 8 the writer says that,
29 "when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting
in the children of man."
God’s primary posture towards the earth is not production, but pleasure.
God’s primary posture is not "what can it do for me?", but pleasure/wonder.
God’s posture is not consumption "what can it give me?", but celebration.
Take a look at it…
God basks in the order and beauty and randomness of Creation.
The whole creation is an expression of God, so as we begin to understand the creation we can begin to get an idea of the Creator; that is why the apostle Paul declares that God’s eternal qualities can be understood from what he has made (Rom. 1:20).
May you always live your life in awe of God and His Creation. May you look around you and notice Him and stand in wonder and awe as you fall more and more in love with the One who says, "You are good." "It is good."
- Boo Scott