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Through Nature to Nature’s God, August 20
And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very
good.
Genesis 1:31
.
God speaks to us in nature. It is His voice we hear as we gaze upon the
beauty and richness of the natural world. We view His glory in the beauteous
things His hand has made. We stand and behold His works without a veil
between. God has given us these things that in beholding the works of His
hands, we may learn of Him.
God has given us these precious things as an expression of His love. The
Lord is a lover of the beautiful, and to please and gratify us He has spread
before us the beauties of nature, even as an earthly parent seeks to place
beautiful things before the children that he loves. The Lord is always pleased
to see us happy. Sinful as it is with all its imperfections, the Lord has lavished
upon this earth the useful and the beautiful. The beautiful tinted flowers tell
of His tenderness and love. They have a language of their own, reminding us
of the Giver.
We may look up through nature to nature’s God. In the beautiful lofty
trees, the shrubs, the flowers, God reveals His character. He is to be compared
to the most beautiful lilies and roses and pinks. I love to look upon the things
of God in nature, for the Lord impresses upon them His character. In love
to us He has given them, and He means that we shall have pleasure in them.
Then let us not worship the beautiful things in nature, but let us look up
through them to nature’s God, and be led to worship the Giver. Let these
beautiful ministries of love answer the purpose of God, and draw our hearts to
Him, to be filled with the beauties of His character, and adore His goodness,
His compassion, His inexpressible love.
God is good, and greatly to be praised. His mercies have been freely
bestowed upon us. He has surrounded us with tokens of His love. The
heathen may rage and imagine vain things, but the Lord is unchangeable.
He has made the strength of the everlasting hills to be a safe retreat for His
people. He has prepared the mountains and the caves for His oppressed and
persecuted children. We may sing, “God is our refuge and strength in time of
trial.” He who made the towering mountains, the everlasting hills—to Him we
may look.—
Manuscript 100, August 20, 1898
, “Through Nature to Nature’s
God.”
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