Finding God's Love in Your World
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Isa. 40:26, NIV.
I had just left a trying day in the Los Angeles area and decided to drive out across the high desert on my way to Redlands, California. Although I thought that it would be relaxing and quiet, I discovered just the opposite. I was hot, tired, and stressed out, the scenery was disappointing, and the road was much longer than I had remembered. In the depths of my despair I noticed a cloud forming in the east. Shortly I was driving through a most refreshing cloudburst, and then I spotted a rainbow. Contrasted against the black cloud, it could not have been brighter or more beautiful. And just then I knew that it was all OK. That rainbow told me all that I needed to know. God was at the wheel and would guide me through.
Since then I have developed a game that I play nearly everywhere I go. I look for rainbows. I watch to see where they may be hiding and what the elements are that lend to their creation. Sometimes there are rainbows in the spider webs wet with dew on a late summer morn. At other times rainbows form on the ice that crusts over patches of melted snow. Even the snow crystals glittering in the late February sun aid my search for this evidence of God's love.
But I have learned that it is not only in the rainbow that we can find evidence of God's love. When I look up into the sky at night, I remember the creative power of love as contrasted with the destructive nature of selfish lust, and I know that it is love that put and holds the stars in place. Even along the concrete streets of the city I see bright yellow, white, and cobalt blue flowers defying the restrictions of modern civilization, and I know who placed them there, and why.
Recognizing God's love in all of these places and things not only tells me about His goodness but also reveals something about my value to Him. There is so much good health in being wanted!
Why not practice looking for the evidence of love in the world around you? When you find it, you'll find God, because God is love.
I had just left a trying day in the Los Angeles area and decided to drive out across the high desert on my way to Redlands, California. Although I thought that it would be relaxing and quiet, I discovered just the opposite. I was hot, tired, and stressed out, the scenery was disappointing, and the road was much longer than I had remembered. In the depths of my despair I noticed a cloud forming in the east. Shortly I was driving through a most refreshing cloudburst, and then I spotted a rainbow. Contrasted against the black cloud, it could not have been brighter or more beautiful. And just then I knew that it was all OK. That rainbow told me all that I needed to know. God was at the wheel and would guide me through.
Since then I have developed a game that I play nearly everywhere I go. I look for rainbows. I watch to see where they may be hiding and what the elements are that lend to their creation. Sometimes there are rainbows in the spider webs wet with dew on a late summer morn. At other times rainbows form on the ice that crusts over patches of melted snow. Even the snow crystals glittering in the late February sun aid my search for this evidence of God's love.
But I have learned that it is not only in the rainbow that we can find evidence of God's love. When I look up into the sky at night, I remember the creative power of love as contrasted with the destructive nature of selfish lust, and I know that it is love that put and holds the stars in place. Even along the concrete streets of the city I see bright yellow, white, and cobalt blue flowers defying the restrictions of modern civilization, and I know who placed them there, and why.
Recognizing God's love in all of these places and things not only tells me about His goodness but also reveals something about my value to Him. There is so much good health in being wanted!
Why not practice looking for the evidence of love in the world around you? When you find it, you'll find God, because God is love.
Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
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