The earth is beautiful. It doesn’t matter where you go on this crazy little dust ball we call home, you can find something beautiful. Even if that beauty comes in the form of desolate deserts in the Middle East or the lush rain forests of South America or the savannahs of Africa, it’s still beautiful and amazing and totally beyond anything that we puny humans could have made.
Mountains and jungle and corn - Peten, Guatemala
Today’s verse is Psalm 98:4.
Shout to the LORD, all the earth; break out in praise and sing for joy!
There are verses throughout the Psalms — throughout the whole Bible, really — that talk about how all of Creation is in a constant state of worship.
Trees, fields, flowers, birds, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars — everything that God made proclaims how awesome He is even though they don’t really have the ability to speak. So I find it ironic that the crowning jewel of God’s creation, the creation that is made like God and has been given a choice in the matter, refuses to give God the credit.
I am such a self-centered person sometimes. I get caught in the trap of thinking that God created everything for me. And that’s wrong. God didn’t create the world for humans. He didn’t create humans just so they could run around and have a good time either. He created everything for His glory.
God didn’t create the earth for me. He created it for Himself, just like He made me and everyone else. But God inexplicably gave us a choice. We can choose to serve Him or we can choose not to serve Him. We can choose to give Him glory or we can choose to live for ourselves. It’s up to us. Granted, we have to face the consequences of those choices, but that’s what it means to have a choice — accepting whatever consequences are associated with it.
But whether I choose to serve God and give Him credit and glory really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Yes, He wants me to. And, yes, He gave everything so that He could have a relationship with me. But when it comes right down to it, God doesn’t need me.
He doesn’t need me to worship Him. He has all of creation to do that. Creation can’t help it. The whole earth has been so marvelously stitched together that even the “simplest” of organisms is beyond our capacity to understand. The complexity and the creativity and the beauty is beyond mere circumstance and chance; the earth itself is evidence that God created everything. And if the rocks can’t shut up about it, what’s my problem?
If all of creation has no problem telling God how awesome He is, why do I hesitate? Why am I reluctant to worship Him for all the things that He is doing in my life?
I get so bogged down in all the everyday troubles and struggles of life that I forget sometimes what the purpose of living is all about. I forget what God has done for me. And I forget to thank Him when I should.
But when you get right down to the truth about it, God doesn’t need me to tell Him that He’s great. But if I can, it will change me.
If I can get my eyes off myself and my little insignificant life and focus all my energy and my intentionality on Him and His bigger picture, my life will change. My purpose will become clear. And my existence will not only have meaning now but will leave a legacy behind for others to follow.
Creation isn’t about us. It isn’t about us understanding how God did something. It’s understanding that some things are beyond our understanding. And it’s about giving God credit for everything because if we can do that, we can realize that life isn’t about us. It’s about Him.
And when we really wrap our heads around that, He can really start to use us.
Always Peachy 