In Harmony With the Creator

Here's a series of photos I took from the shoreline of Heart Lake at the Adirondack Loj at sunset, relaxing and marveling with Corinne over the changes in the sky in just over 15 minutes.  The science of how light reflects off a still body of water and of how the sun rays are refracted as they take a longer path through the earth's atmosphere at sunrise and sunset are well known.  But what I responded to in those moments was not the physics of light but the harmony of nature with its Creator God.  The sky started out cloudy but as the clouds lifted the setting sun splashed some clouds in pinks and peach colors, blue sky appeared, and some of the clouds remained gray.  Nature seemed to be responding in tune with its Creator's design, and it was beautiful and peaceful in line with the Hebrew word Shalom.

Then I considered the state of humankind. Of all the created world, humans were to be God's crowning creation.  

I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 

what is man that you are mindful of him, 

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little

lower than the heavenly beings,

 and crowned him with glory and honor

Psalm 8:3-5 

So as wonderful as creation itself was intended to be, we who were to be the capstone of His creation, seem to be more out of touch with our Creator than the rest of creation.  What went wrong?  He gave to humankind something that he gave to nothing else in the created world - a free will.  With that free will, Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree at the center of the garden, Cain killed his brother Abel, Isreal abandoned God and clung to idols, and the Jewish leaders and Romans conspired to murder His Son, Jesus.  If God knew all this was going to happen, why did He allow it?  He could have made us like the rest of creation which seemed to me at that sunset moment to be in harmony with the Creator.  But God has made us for himself, to experience fellowship with Him. That kind of desire does not derive from compulsion but from a heart that desires such a relationship.  So if He intentionally created us to experience fellowship with Him and our waywardness has separated us, what can be done to restore it?

God sent His Son, Jesus to perform the work of atoning for our sins, and putting us back into a right relationship with the Creator God (Romans 3:21-23).  While enjoying these long-awaited summer months when we are outdoors near our homes or vacationing in remote and beautiful places, and marveling at God's Creation, think about the door God has opened for us in Jesus to be brought back into harmony with Him.