The Visible Glory of God in Creation

It seems fairly common for people to say that they "feel close to God" when they are outdoors, e.g., an incredible lookout from the top of a mountain a sunset. Being in the presence of natural beauty has an incredible effect on me...I'd like to describe one such instance.

I first want to draw the distinction between creator and creation. I'm not saying that we find God in that beauty...but rather we can recognize that it could only be a glorious, holy, and absolutely incredible God that could even be capable of creating such splendor. Moving on...

Today after work I drove up to a road that runs along Clark's Creek in Harrisburg. The drive there was terrible because everyone seemed to be headed to Penn State for homecoming (God later used the traffic in a way I would have never expected...read on). My ride was really great (I may have found a new favorite local riding spot), and there was certainly a great deal of God's beautiful creation along the way. But what really stood out to me was a view of bumper-to-bumper traffic headed the opposite direction in the foreground of the Appalachian mountains. It was incredible. It really seemed to put in perspective how small we are in relation to God's creation as a whole...and even yet, how small we are in comparison to God. On my way there, as I sat in the traffic, I was frustrated and my focus was on my need to get to Clarks Creek with enough time to make it back before it got dark. However, on my way home, my worldly "needs" and feelings felt very silly un-important. Rather, my current "needs" of the hour were replaced with my absolute need for Jesus Christ.

I'm really grateful for moments like that. It's easy to lose sight of God's creation living in the concrete jungle where a flowing stream or a naturally growing tree are about as rare as a bible believing, evangelical Christian who want's to talk theology.

A few weeks ago Justin Taylor posted a link to a Piper sermon titled "Do You See the Joy of God in the Sun?". I would HIGHLY recommend even just the 4 minute excerpt. In the sermon he mentioned these stores want to block your view of God's creation to create an "out of sight, out of mind" type phenomenon so that sin is the only thing that will be in focus. He mentions that our sight of a view similar to the one that I described would be bad for business because...well, it would create feelings similar to the one that I described. I don't think looking up at a mountain every time that we are tempted to sin will 100% stop us from ever sinning, but I do think it is an incredible method that is very effective in fighting any sort of sin.

Mike, I remember you posting something - or maybe we just talked about it: the difference between God's natural creation and God's creation through man's actions. I'm 100% with you that God's behind both. But it has been my experience that admiration of God's creation through man is a 0% effective means of fighting sin - rather, at least for me, it feeds my sin. I often can look out my window and look at all of the cool cars parked along the street, or houses, or even a bridge...and somehow, it always spurs up an element of idolatry: "I wish I had that", or "I could engineer that", etc.