Admiring God

Early Saturday morning after my devotional, I was sitting on the third story balcony overlooking Table Rock Lake and reading a book when all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw something coming at me. As I looked up I noticed it was a crow flying directly at me, so what I did was what I would do as a child sitting on mom and dads porch. I just sat there perfectly still to see how close this bird would get before it noticed I was there. To my surprise and to the crows, it came within five to six feet of me before it realized I was sitting there. But as soon as it noticed me it did a hard one-eighty and headed back in the direction from which it came and in just a matter of a few seconds the crow was more than three hundred yards away and landing in a treetop towering out of a valley pointing in the direction of the lake, and that’s when I had this astounding epiphany.

As I watched the crow fly off it drew my attention away from what I was doing and where I was at. I placed my book on the patio table because I was no longer interested in reading about someone else’s experience with God when I was having my own. At that point I no longer heard the muffled sounds of the other eight people in our condo behind me scurrying to get ready to leave for the theme park. I no longer felt the responsibilities of pastoring, fathering, being a brother or a husband. All I could do was set there admiring God in His awesomeness. The trees, the valley, the lake and the sky, the breeze, the bugs, the animals and even the back of my hand silently screamed of God’s creative glory and everyone inside the condo behind me was missing it. God’s glory had been laid bare before me and I was now witnessing that which had previously been invisible by the business of my own personal life. And like David I was once again reminded of God’s powerful presence in all of creation. David writes in Psalms nineteen, one that the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

It’s as if I had a better understanding of what the six winged seraphim continuously declare about Gods glory in Isaiah six, three where they call to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory." Here I sat having one of the best God moments I’ve had in a long time on a personal basis and I wasn’t in a pew, a pulpit or a manmade place of worship but I was just basking in the sights, the sounds and the presence of the Almighty in the middle of His creation, as one of His creations.

But as life would have it my God moment was interrupted when I could hear the voices behind me inside the condo asking “Where’s Ron? We’re about ready to go.” So I picked up my book from the patio table and was once again transported from God’s glory to what we’ve made of it. But I will never forget and I will always cherish the morning I was invited to admire God in all His glory by a startled crow.