The Psalmist wrote that the heavens declare the glory of God and that the firmament shows his handiwork (Psalm 19). Natural revelation is affirmed in Scripture many times.
Today I am thinking about “natural revelation” and seeing God in the capacities and opportunities he has given humankind. I got a phone call on Friday–really a message left on the church answering machine. I was out of town–just returned from two weeks in Honduras and then directly to Quest at Oklahoma Christian. I didn’t hear the message until Sunday morning, but I called my friend in Michigan on Sunday afternoon.
He serves as an elder in the church and wanted to be in contact about a missions question. He didn’t know that I had left Christian higher education to return to a mixed role in ministry and missions. Now he wants sermons tapes. He has always been a tremendous encourager and great supporter of my ministry. He said he had a hard time finding me, but finally succeeded on the Internet.
[Even looking for me via an Internet search can be tough–seven sports figures, four politicians, five actors and film/television persons, seven authors, and at least a dozen others share my name. Googling my name means you have to browse through a couple dozen results before you get to me. Add ministry or missions to your search, however, and you shoot my website to the top of the results. But back to my point.]
When I called on Sunday afternoon, we shared a delightful time catching up and renewing our fellowship in Christ. I wrote him early yesterday. By mid-morning yesterday, my secretary forwarded an email to me from him (which she had received over the weekend). My friend and I exchanged several additional emails yesterday and are working together now to increase some possibilities in mission work.
I realize that in telling this story, I have strayed a couple of times from the point reflected in my title. In the email exchange, in the reconnection, in the dream of mission work yet to be done, I see God! God is at work in our world, enabling us, empowering us, connecting us for his glory. His greatest glory is not in the physical universe. His greatest glory is the creative genius demonstrated in making you and me.
Unfortunately our freedom of choice often mars that glory, but human beings living out the plan and purpose of God in their lives are reflections of his glory (read 2 Corinthians 3). We are his letter to the world, we are the demonstration of his wisdom, we are the visible glory of the invisible, just as was Jesus.
Join me today in praying that we might be channels through which the wonder of our world and the glory of our God might be seen!