Following the Current

 

The day after a steady rain, I decided to get away and take a walk. I follow the stream that meanders through the hills and dense woods behind where I live. The water seems so fresh, so alive. Like a water color painter's touch, God lightly smudges the stream to carve out valleys through the Bluegrass.

Opening up the lens, I gave a five second exposure to God's creation. This is but a snapshot, not even a speck of the vast creation from God's hands. Yet here in the quiet woods, I marvel at His work. His providence is found in steady streams where life draws from His spring. His power is displayed in such a small stream, carrying large rock and flood waters taking down large trees. His restraint is revealed by the waters to only go so far and return to the stream.

I happened upon this stone wall near the creek. The wall looks old, and God's living nature is slowly reclaiming it. The wall stands quite the distance from any roadway and seems to have been raised in a hurry. This was likely an early settler's way of placing  up boundaries of his property. The moss and plant life is recapturing what was placed up by a man who has since passed. Who is man that God is mindful of him? We come and go, and You remain forever. You have given us dominion over your creation, setting us above your living nature (Psalm 8). Yet, what we build and stack is easily erased by Your mighty hand, Your gentle touch. How majestic is Your Name in all the earth!
We stack God's rocks into walls to mark out what is ours. I cannot help but find these efforts as futility, a chasing after the wind. Our work does not survive time; our lives find an end. The great work of God is eternal. How merciful is our God to permit to us participation in His great kingdom work.

By the stream, I came across a broad-winged damselfly. A most magnificent blue shimmers in the sunshine peering through the canopy of the deep Kentucky woods. God's mighty handiwork declared in such a diminutive piece. Even the smallest detail is not neglected by God's fingers. What could such a tiny creature do but glorify his majestic Creator?

 On Steven's Branch Road, the road home, I observed the setting sun peeking rays through the dense woods that line this secluded gravel road. One small dandelion rises from the grassy median of the gravel road. The luster from the sun shows the details of the seedlings from this once yellow flower. This flowering weed is not trampled on, and does not seem so cold and lonely with the brilliance of the sunshine. Not lonely, just secluded.

A farm gate sits quietly beside the roadway.  On the other side of this gate is the spring the locals used for water as recently as 1994, when water pipelines were finally completed. People would bring buckets or pumps in the back of trucks to this spring and draw water for cooking, drinking, water gardens, and for livestock. Now this rusty gate has a chain and padlock, slowly forgetting our past as we have grown accustomed to modern luxury.

At the corner of Steven's Branch and Gest Roads is this stop sign. It seems to be the custom to shoot at road signs. This stop sign is riddled with holes from what appears to be a shotgun. The setting sun shines through the holes for a nice photograph.

God provides a lovely sunset to end my walk in the woods following the current of a nearby stream. God is good to me, to us. God's majesty in nature is not simply in its function, but in its beauty. I am thankful to God for both. His Name is majestic, and His living nature is beautiful. How much more beautiful is the Word through whom all things were created? All of nature sings a beautiful song to the glory of the majestic Name of our Creator.