As I write this it is the waning days of April. The weather has started to get better. I have shut off the heat in the office and opened the window in my office.
And I hear, smell, and feel spring.
There is a bee that has gotten stuck between my window and the outside world and I can hear it buzzing. Just beyond that and below my window is a mother killdeer who has made her nest again in the rocks. And I hear her chirp and squawk.
And even further beyond that I can hear more birds singing.
Spring is here! When springtime rolls around, I find my mind constantly turning to the Psalms. Refrains like, “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (8:1). Or “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (19:1). Or even still, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (104:24; or frankly, the entire psalm!)
While I’ve never much of an “outdoorsy” guy, I still appreciate the absolute beauty of the earth. I have been fortunate to be able to see some amazing things in my years, both close to home and far away: the flowing, silent, pastoral hills of Southern France; the beaches and jungles of the Caribbean and Central America; the small farms of my native Ohio; mountains, hills, and woods of Pennsylvania; Niagara Falls; the falls inside Letchworth State Park in New York; the sunsetting over Presque Isle; the glaciers and ancient volcanoes of Alaska…and many, many others.
Each one, in their own way, speaks of what the psalmists speak about in their words. Each scene and each moment captures something absolutely breathtaking about what God is up to and how God has decorated the world that God loves and shares with us.
Spring also gets me to thinking about new life as the trees start to bloom and the plants come out of their winter hibernation. Our backyard is starting to fill up with not only trees but also turkeys, deer, rabbits, squirrels, and any number of other creatures.
And it amazes me that everything that has the breath of life in it praises God in its own way. Squirrels by being squirrels; and flowers by being flowers; and we humans by bearing God’s sacred and beautiful image.
I know all of us who spend our year in the cold and dreary northern climates really embrace the spring and summer months for a reprieve from snow, slush, ice, and gray.
But I really hope this year you’ll look differently at what God has done and is doing in the beauty of the earth.
Remember the words of one of my favorite hymns, “For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies; Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.”