I’ve never been much of an outdoor person. I used to joke that I could live in a bunker. My husband, on the other hand, lives for it. He says when he’s outside he feels like Superman drawing his power from the sun.
But when I think back on some of the most peaceful, clarifying moments of my life, they are in nature. Which makes me wonder: Why don’t I seek it out more often?
One of my earlier memories is my fourteen-year-old self alone, on a dock at our cabin, but feeling surrounded by peace. My feet dipped in the cool northern Minnesota water and wind twirled my hair. I had no words for it then, but God met me there.
Years later, I was at a college conference near Sault St. Marie, Michigan. Instructed to take three hours of solitude, I wandered the woods wondering what it really meant to be silent before God. Would I really meet Him in the solitude? Maybe the truer question: Would He really want to meet me? I found a log to sit on near a rocky clearing, not far from a bay. My Bible open, I fumbled for His presence in the words. I don’t remember what I read. I only know that He spoke to me during those hours. I met Him there.
A few years after college, burned out and worn down by ministry, I wandered into the woods outside Mankato, Minnesota, the trees blazing with orange and yellow leaves so dense it was all I could see. I sat on a bench and meditated on John 4 and Jesus’ temptation in the desert. To this day, I can’t read that passage apart from the image of the woods on fire. Nature surrounded me as I met Him. God held me in His creation.
One afternoon months later, lost in busyness and anxiety, I pulled on my boots and tromped out into a chilly winter evening. Ecclesiastes 11 stirred fresh in my head. Maybe it was phrases from it like, “cast your bread upon the waters” and “as you do not know the path of the wind” that called me to seek out nature. I stared at an expanse of white snow. Pure and untouched, it looked like the peace it poured over me. A single leaf scattered its way across the snow in reckless ignorance to the peace offered. I saw myself in that leaf.
Each memory of meeting God in nature is like a painted canvas on my heart. I can’t separate His Presence from the scenes.
So, I ask again: If I have met God so powerfully in nature through the years, why don’t I spend more time in it?
It feels like one more way the enemy uses something seemingly innocuous to keep me from God. How easy it is to spend my days shut inside, focused on the task at hand. And when I’m outside, too often I’m in a car, or I’ve just got my head down, missing what God is offering in the beauty that surrounds me. Missing Him.
All around us, God is speaking. He is waiting to meet us. And yes, He can and does meet us in the quiet spaces in our homes, and on the drive to work, or a million other places. But there is something about what He offers us in His creation that is right. It is a place He loves to meet us.
I wonder if it’s because creation is always and has always been talking with God. Nature knows how to worship. It is the constant witness to the work of God throughout time. As it says in Job 12:7-10, “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature, and the breath of all mankind.”
God’s always working, always inviting, always speaking. But I am that leaf scraping across the snow, oblivious to the offering. In His hands are our lives, and the lives of every creature, every breath that we take. Creation knows: it knows that God is here, and at work, and calling us. We could learn how to worship from the earth, but not if we don’t touch it once in a while.
Most days, I walk the long route around our neighborhood with our dog. We live in a neighborhood called Isle of Pines, which we affectionally say is like living at the cabin. Tall, impossibly thin trees surround us and overshadow us. It’s my morning commune with Him.
But it is easy to take those walks and not pay attention, not slow down enough to ask the animals, or the birds, or the earth to speak. Am I listening? Am I seeking God? Am I asking Him to meet me in creation?
We were made to commune with God. When we linger in His nature that is already communing with Him, we find Him. Nature awakens the God-given desire to know the Creator, to meet with Him, and ultimately to worship.
If I have met God so powerfully in nature through the years, why don’t I spend more time in it? Click To Tweet
