Why is there a beautiful and a broken side in nature?
Our best encounters with God are in nature. We pray and look up, and see us being small, embedded in a creation, bigger than we ever could imagine. Then our faith sees beyond that and we feel God behind His creation. Bigger than the universe. And It moves us deeply. Why?
Our worst sorrows are in nature. Just some weeks ago many thousands died in Nepal. We suffer illnesses, and it some have nothing to do with how healthy or unhealthy we live. Why?
The answer is no philosophy, it is a person. It’s not the why? It’s the who!
The Answer is IN HIM:
Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God,the firstborn of all creation.16 For IN HIM all things were created,in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities —all things were created through him and for him.17 And he is before all things, and IN HIM all things hold together. (ESV)
Peter, John and the Boys are told to take the boat. Peter is an experienced fisherman. He might have said: Jesus, we shouldn’t. A storm is rising! Don’t you see the clouds? Jesus commands his disciples to take the boat. And then the storm comes! What? Jesus had set them up!
In the middle of the storm the disciples are scared to death. And now Jesus comes. He is walking on water.
Most of the times, we picture Him walking straight, and peaceful. But Jesus walked on a storm! Jesus walked through rain, surely he got a bit wet?
Jesus shouts: “Don’t be afraid, it’s me.”
But if you read closely, he says: “Don’t be afraid: I am I am!”
I am the eternal. The storm has no saying here.
I’ve got the authority. Everything has it’s being in me.
Even that storm. So he quiets the storm.
He is above nature. Yes.
But Jesus is not God, the preventer of storms.
He is bigger than that.
He is the God in the storm.
So again, why is there a broken, and beautiful side in nature?
The Answer is IN HIM: Jesus, called Emanuel, God with us.
Questions for the week:
- Which things is holding Jesus together in your life right now?
- Which thing in your life do you struggle to believe that he created it (except for mosquitoes)?
- Where do need the God in the storm with you?
