#10) Nothing Merely Happened Along

 …Everything is created.  Everything carries within its form and texture the signature of its Creator.  No part of this material world is unconnected with God; every cell is in the organism of salvation.  Biblical religion cannot be lived apart from matter – the seen, felt, tasted, smelled, and listened to Creation.  It is all, precisely, Creation.  Nothing merely happened along.  Chokecherries and tundra and weasel are not random accidents. Since everything is by design, no part of Creation can be by-passed if we intend to live in the fullest possible relation to our Creator in his Creation.  None of it is an inconvenience that we are forced to put up with. Nothing is a stumbling block introduced by the devil to trip the feet of those whose eyes are piously lifted in praise to God.  Creation is our place for meeting God and conversing with him.  The voice that spoke Behemoth and Leviathan into being is the same voice that says, “Your sins are forgiven you,” and invites us to call upon Him in the day of our trouble.  External and internal are the same reality.  Heaven and earth are formed by a single will of God.  We take box seats in this Creation theatre when we pray.  We look around.  The mountains are huge, heaving their bulk upward.  The creeks spill across the rocks, giving extravagant light shows under the hemlocks.  The lakes lift up with the sky, on earth as it is in heaven.  A lion rips its prey.  A sparrow builds its nest.  Solomon and the Shulamite embrace.  An eagle plummets from a cloud to a meadow and takes a rabbit in its talons; for a few moments the two Genesis creatures are in a terrible entangled harmony.  An infant drinks her fill of breakfast from her mother’s breast.  Matter is real.  Flesh is good.  

 

What a wildly wonderful world, God!

You made it all, with wisdom at your side, 

made earth overflowing with your wonderful creations.

 

Taken from Psalms 104: 24 (as translated by Eugene H. Peterson)

 

It is my belief that this could serve as the creed for the Ghost Horse Hills Wild Church.

 

#9) The Glory and Praise is God’s – He is Worthy

 “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth”    Matthew 5:5

 

What a wonderful inheritance!

 

If we truly believe that only God is worthy of the praise and the glory, being meek should be an easy goal to achieve. Even so, I am cursed with the word ‘I’. – I did this, I did that or I did the next thing that is on the list.  Everything about Creation points to the fact that I have done nothing at all. 

 

There is an Indigenous tribe in the southwest U.S. (the Hopi). Their culture asks that they avoid using the word 'I'.  When something good happens that is worthy of praise, they humbly and meekly say that the good thing happened ‘through them’.  They never take the credit for any good thing.  This keeps their ego in check.  This aligns with the teachings of Christ and with the promises and rewards that Jesus spoke of when delivering the Beatitudes on the side of a mountain.  

 

For the last couple of years my goal has been to eliminate the word ‘I’ from my thoughts and speech and try to achieve some sort of meekness.  The fact is, I have failed miserably.  It’s like I am addicted to the word I.  It creeps into my speech most times unnoticed.  I would love to inherit the earth.  Creation has helped to keep me meek.  Maybe you the reader is of the opinion that it would be easy to remove the word ‘I’ from your thoughts and speech.  Here’s a challenge.  Try it and let me know how you fare.

 

Thank you.

Richard