Advent Journey: December 3rd
© Michael Livesay-Wright
Questions and Reflections
QUESTION: What's your favorite thing about creation?
Have you stopped and thought about this? If you haven't, maybe step outside together as a family bundled up in blankets or coats. What strikes you as beautiful today? The intricate patters of twigs and branches visible now bare against the sky? The way birds seem to float on the air. The tiny spider weaving a delicate web? All of it is miraculous! At my house we particularly love the planets and stars right now - they can seriously take our breath away.
QUESTION: Why did God say "It is good" about what he made?
I love this! I love that he takes a moment to acknowledge how good this all is. The whale, the possum, the blade of grass, the palm trees... How good it all is. What does is say about God that he made so many interesting and complex and beautiful things? Isaiah 6:3 says, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And in Psalm 19 the poet writes:
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
QUESTION: How does creation reveal God's character to us?
Think about your pet if you have one. Or a mama bird with her baby birds or really any component of creation. Setting aside the side of nature that is a result of the fall, what can we learn about God from just looking at and soaking in the world he has made? The stars and planets remind me of the omnipotence of God -- he is larger than the largest thing we can imagine and above and beyond all time and space. They also remind me He is a God of order as the precision with which the planets makes their path around the Sun is truly beautiful! I am no scientist, but I know that these things are marvelous and the One who made them is even more marvelous still.
QUESTION: Have you experienced something good turning bad in your life? Did you pray for God to fix it and maybe He did... and maybe He didn't? What do we know to be true beyond and above and before and all around this experience?
If you are currently walking in suffering, if you have lost someone dear, if you are lonely, if you have experienced something beautiful and good being destroyed or falling apart in front of you, I want you to know that this is not right and it is not fair. God did not intend for that suffering on his Earth. But I think, as we pause and look at His creation we can also take a deep inhale of His grandeur and acknowledge -- even as we still feel fear and grief and disappointment -- that the One who set the planets in their place and called every creature into being set us on this weary Earth that He loves so much. He did it with love and care and purpose even if it may not feel like that in the moment. He is not far off. He sees you and he knows you and He is coming for you!