Illustration: My buddies were fishing. I was, too, but I tend to observe a lot. When I looked up, out, around, and above, the spectacle surpassed any painting. Sunlight washed the hills in light the color of honey. The green grasses bent in the breeze in the meadows. Wildflower clusters of white, black, and gold carpeted the fields. Willow tress arched over the pond’s edge. Geese huddled at the far end of the pond in descending order according to size. The white bark of the aspen trees complemented the green of their boughs. The windmill turned in the breeze and oxygenated the water. We kept fishing and catching rainbow trout, their shiny skin displaying the slippery sheen of colors, justifying their name. If you had eyes to see and ears to hear, I don’t know how you could miss the message. God was heralding his majesty. 

Scripture: David wrote the following in Psalm 8:3-4:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

We must be careful, however. Of what? Of worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. The creation exists to point us to its Author, God himself. If we don’t rightly understand that God transcends his creation and is sovereign over all things, we become guilty of exchanging the truth about God for a lie and we worship and serve “the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:25).As beautiful and alluring as creation and creatures can be, they are not self-generating. They exist because of their Author. God “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3).

Encouragement: I kept fishing. My buddies did, too. We caught some more rainbows. We enjoyed the creation in light of what the Author of life penned for us—a story of the transcendent God, who created all things, who upholds them, who calls his people to steward creation, and acknowledge the wisdom of the only transcendent, sovereign, good, and holy God. As Paul wrote in Romans 1:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” The mountains are not accidental. The sun is not accidental. The white of the aspens is not accidental. The intricate shiny pastiche of colors on the trout is not accidental. They all exist to call our attention to the One who is the Author of beauty–because he is the One who is Beauty himself. Delight yourself in creation to see that creation and we creatures attest to our Creator.