FOR THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH

One summer I was traveling and enjoying the beauty of God's creation as well as the fellowship and love of friends. I bless God for all of that. The more I contemplate the beauty of creation and appreciate the love of friends old and new, the more amazed I am to be able to be alive. I have experienced a great deal of joy on this journey of my life, and it never ceases to amaze me how wonderful joy is I had the joy of visiting with friends I haven't seen in five years or more. Some of them had moved to new places since I had seen them last.

There was great delight in seeing them and I can now happily imagine them in their new places. With the friends who were still where I had last seen them, there was the joy of being in a familiar place with happy memories already connected to it. So in my ruminations while on the train, I got to thinking about joy.

What is it, anyway? And how do we experience it? 

The joy of the Lord is your strength, from Nehemiah 8:10, is one of my favorite Bible verses, although when I first heard it, I didn't understand it at all. I wondered how God's joy could be strength to someone.

Then I questioned how someone could know God's joy exists at all. What makes God joyful?

Sometimes we have a tendency to think of God as if God is a disciplinarian-type parent, always ready to sternly correct us. The last thing we can imagine at those times is God full of joy.

Sometimes there are even people who only associate the idea of God with punishment and correction. They don't have any concept of God being joyful and full of the happiness that comes from being in a relationship.

I have felt like that at times, too.

However, while traveling on the trains, as I have enjoyed the beauty of God's creation this summer, I have often thought of the passages in the first chapter of Genesis when it says that God created each part of creation and called it good.

God may have been joyful at that time. Why not? I get plenty of joy by experiencing the beauty of God's creation even though I, of course, had nothing to do with it. How much more joy might the Creator have when He views the work of His hands.

In Job 38:7, it says there was a time when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted with joy 

And why not? Creation is truly not only beautiful, but marvelous and amazing.

It is one thing to ride on a train through the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, but we also can find the beauty of creation in a tiny flower, or contemplating the smallest atomic particle or the life existent in the depths of the sea.

When we see images taken by the Hubble telescope of the fascinating sights of the universe beyond the confines of our very beautiful planet, we are amazed.

Our Creator has such a wonderful imagination and such a sense of fantastic beauty! And yet, I believe that God's joy and love extends beyond the marvelous creation that is visible to us. Each one of us is an incredibly beautiful creation of God, too. 

And we were created to bring God even greater joy than the Lord must have concerning the rest of creation. I believe God loves each person on earth more than ALL of creation. When we know God has that kind of joy when regarding each one of us, we have some indication of God's love toward us as individuals.

Possibly it is at that point that the joy of the Lord may be our strength.

How wonderful to know God's joy! How fantastic to believe, to have the assurance to KNOW you are loved and that God finds great joy in you! 

What would your life be liked if you really knew that kind of love?

What would you be able to do if you were sure that God loved you completely, absolutely, continually and eternally?

What would it mean to you to know that God is full of joy concerning you? 

In Zechariah 3:17, it says “God will rejoice over you with joy; and you will rest in God's love, God will joy over you with singing”

Can you imagine that? It's true.

You are God's beautiful creation, and a child of God in Christ. When you really believe God loves you and you are able to receive God's love and blessings, God rejoices, just like it says He does. Isn't that amazing?

God is so good and so faithful -- and so full of joy!

Alleluia!

Thank You, Lord. You are so wonderful. Thank You for the Holy Scriptures, for the beauty of the earth and for the wonder of the love shared with family and friends. Alleluia!  Amen.