She Falls Up Stairs: 'I look up to the sky and say, you're beautiful'

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Yesterday evening I happened to glance out of my bedroom window. It was around seven thirty, and the sky was ablaze with colour. I’ve seen many beautiful sunsets, but this one struck me as particularly glorious, so I grabbed my camera and ran across the road down to the country lane for a better look.

For a few moments I was a lone spectator, standing in a bare wheat field in awe at a sky awash with peach and purple, blue and yellow and storm-grey. At times like that all I can think is ‘wow, God, you’re amazing.’

I had a similar moment a few years ago on a youth weekend away in Sheringham. I distinctly remember going to the beach on the first night, as was youth group tradition (I have fond memories of football on Cromer pier, of playing tig in the sand, and carrying bundles of firewood down steep slopes in the dark). Anyhow, it was a clear night. There’s not a lot of light pollution in Sheringham, and I will never forget the sight of thousands of stars flung into a vast sky over the sea, moonlight playing off the water and the white crests of the waves that broke along the shore. I’ve seen some wonderful places in my life, but I think that was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

As humans many of try desperately to unravel the Earth’s mysteries. Some of us get frustrated trying to prove or disprove God, often tripping over our own intellect in the process.

As much as I applaud the efforts of scientists, and appreciate how closely linked science and God can truly be, sometimes I think that the sheer beauty of this world is enough to prove the existence of God and reflect His glory.

God calls His people to have a childlike faith, i.e. one that accepts without cynicism. We could all benefit sometimes simply from standing back and saying ‘yes, God, you’re bigger than my finite human mind will ever comprehend, but that’s OK’.

As I’m writing this I’m also reminded of the book of Job, which is a bit harrowing to read but has such a triumphant ending. What strikes me most about it though is the passage where Job and his friends are raging at God for his numerous sufferings and misfortunes. And God answers him this way:

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

²“Who is this that obscures my plans
    with words without knowledge?
³Brace yourself like a man;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.

⁴“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.
⁵Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
⁶On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone—
⁷while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸“Who shut up the sea behind doors
    when it burst forth from the womb,
⁹when I made the clouds its garment
    and wrapped it in thick darkness,
¹⁰when I fixed limits for it
    and set its doors and bars in place,
¹¹when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
    here is where your proud waves halt’?”

…

²⁸Does the rain have a father?
    Who fathers the drops of dew?
²⁹From whose womb comes the ice?
    Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
³⁰when the waters become hard as stone,
    when the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹“Can you bind the chains^[b] of the Pleiades?
    Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
³²Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons^[c]
    or lead out the Bear^[d] with its cubs?
³³Do you know the laws of the heavens?
    Can you set up God’s^[e] dominion over the earth?”

There’s a lot more which I won’t post, but you can read the rest here if you wish- http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=job%2038&version=NIV (Better still listen to it by clicking the audio button on top of the page!)

I don’t think any words of mine can add to verses such as these, so I will end on that note.