Credit - Audley Travel

God's All Around Us

Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day are behind us now. I hope yours were filled with love, laughter, joy, and wonderful memories you can hold onto for the rest of your life.

I love my family. It is the part of the Holidays that I look forward to the most. Every smile, every laugh, every hug, and every "I love you" means more to me than any gift on any list.

The holidays make me extremely aware of the gift of family that God has blessed me with. I am overcome with awe when I think that before I was born, God had a plan to create Barb to share my life's journey with.

I see God in the faces of my loved ones. I marvel at His creation every day, from the majestic Pikes Peak (pictured above and below) that I get to view every time I leave the house, to the sun that warms my face, to the tiny paws of TooC (for too cute), the little squirrel that waits at the back patio for a treat that she gently takes from my hand.

I did well in school. I can describe the way the sunlight is scattered by dust, smoke and other particles in the air, filtering out the blues and leaving beautiful oranges and yellows to reach our eyes at sunrise and sunset.

I learned that massive tectonic plate movements in our earth's crust caused those majestic giants that rise above the earth's crust that we call mountains.

I marvel at the handiwork of God daily. And I'm not apt to stumble over what I learned in school. I don't see science and God being at odds. 

So today, I just want to encourage you to look for the hand of the Creator in all you see as you rush to the end of 2023.

I'll leave you with a few pictures, quotes, and Bible verses to set the tone.

Credit - David Shankbone

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." 

-Genesis 1:1

"Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature."

-Augustine

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.

-George Washington Carver

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.

-Martin Luther

God's miracles are to be found in nature itself; the wind and waves, the wood that becomes a tree - all of these are explained biologically, but behind them is the hand of God.

-Ronald Reagan

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands." 

-Psalm 19:1

There is a signature of wisdom and power impressed on the works of God, which evidently distinguishes them from the feeble imitations of men.--Not only the splendor of the sun, but the glimmering light of the glowworm, proclaims his glory.

-John Newton

Nature gives every evidence of being intelligently designed. 

-Dr. Edgar Andrews

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.

-Mother Teresa

"For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." 

-Romans 1:20

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.

-George Washington Carver

Look at the beautiful butterfly, and learn from it to trust in God. One might wonder where it could live in tempestuous nights, in the whirlwind, or in the stormy day; but I have noticed it is safe and dry under the broad leaf while the rivers have been flooded, and the mountain oaks torn up from their roots.

-Jeremy Taylor

"Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it, the Lord is His name." 

-Jeremiah 33:2

Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of the mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.

-Augustine

Nature is but a name for an effect, whose cause is God.

-William Cowper

I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God.

-Alan Hovhaness

"God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good." 

-Genesis 1:31

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf of springtime.

-Martin Luther

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.

-Thomas Browne

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. "

-Psalm 118:24

Happy New Year to you and your families. Thanks for being part of my online family and I look forward to bringing you more of what I've been thinking in 2024.

Choose to live your life going forward with purpose and love.

Now go live your best life,

Dan