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Nature Teaches the Value of Obedience to Law, August 19
Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the
ground apart from your Father’s will.
Matthew 10:29
, NKJV.
The great teacher brought His hearers in contact with nature, that they might
listen to the voice which speaks in all created things; and as their hearts became
tender and their minds receptive, He helped them to interpret the spiritual teaching
of the scenes upon which their eyes rested. The parables, by means of which He
loved to teach lessons of truth, show how open His spirit was to the influences of
nature and how He delighted to gather the spiritual teaching from the surroundings
of daily life.
The birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the sower and the seed, the shepherd
and the sheep—with these Christ illustrated immortal truth. He drew illustrations
also from the events of life, facts of experience familiar to the hearers—the leaven,
the hid treasure, the pearl, the fishing net, the lost coin, the prodigal son, the houses
on the rock and the sand. In His lessons there was something to interest every mind,
to appeal to every heart. Thus the daily task, instead of being a mere round of toil,
bereft of higher thoughts, was brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of the
spiritual and the unseen.
So we should teach. Let the children learn to see in nature an expression of the
love and the wisdom of God; let the thought of Him be linked with bird and flower
and tree; let all things seen become to them the interpreters of the unseen, and all
the events of life be a means of divine teaching.
As they learn thus to study the lessons in all created things, and in all life’s
experiences, show that the same laws which govern the things of nature and the
events of life are to control us; that they are given for our good; and that only in
obedience to them can we find true happiness and success.—
Education, 102, 103
.
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