GOD DID THAT!!!
One of the things my wife and I enjoy doing together is watching documentaries about nature. Kathy loves animals and the wonders of our planet and so do I. We have watched Wild Russia, Wild India, Wild Africa, Wild Alaska, and many others. Recently while watching one about the animals of India, the narrator kept repeatedly stating how well these animals had adapted over billions of years of evolution! Can I be honest? I was “triggered”! I was incensed! I mean it infuriates me how our Heavenly Father, God Almighty, is robbed of the due and just credit He deserves for His incredible Creation and all His gifts to us. They steal from God! They make millions and millions of dollars using footage of all God’s marvelous beauty and creation, then steal the credit due to Him, the honor, praise and thanks God deserves, and give credit to the insulting, deliberate, pernicious lie of evolution! Claiming that something came from nothing, bringing itself about by its own ingenuity, by its diligent perseverance and the sacrificing of itself over time, that it finally perfected itself into the well-adapted, magnificent creature we see before us today; I mean, it just infuriates me, and fills me with righteous indignation!! BUT what gets me even more???!! We Christians who ought to be drooling praise and thanksgiving to our great God and Creator every single day because we know the real truth about everything, and yet we don’t!! We are robbing God of the praise, honor and thanks that He deserves every single day of our lives! We are also missing out on the tremendous emotional blessing and vitality that comes to our very soul and spirit when we consciously call these wonders to mind and thank God for them! It can bring such healing to our soul, psyche, and emotions. Praise and thanksgiving are not purposeless efforts of wasted time. In light of that, and in pursuit of my own greater appreciation, gratitude and praise to God, I thought it would be good for us all to reflect on some of these undeniable, astounding realities! May they give you a fresh new perspective, and fill your heart with gratitude and your mouth with thanksgiving and praise! These are some of the things I deliberately reflect on every single day and in my times of prayer pour out my thanks and praise to God! These reflections sustain me emotionally and give me such a divine perspective amid all the insanity. When was the last time you pondered and deeply appreciated these realities? GOD DID THAT! Virtually all the life-sustaining systems of our planet and our bodies were given to us by God! We did not do a thing for them. They are all gifts from God! God did that! The sun, perfectly distanced from the earth, not only provides its light and beauty to the earth and sky, it keeps us all from dying with its warmth. It powers the photosynthesis that gives us all life, vegetation and food to eat! This magnificent energy factory is astounding and we do nothing to sustain it whatsoever. Without the sun, and all that it does every moment of every day, we all die!! We cease to exist! God did that! The earth itself contains every possible resource mankind needs to live and thrive, to sustain all life. Within the earth is every precious metal needed for everything we make, including the smartphone in your hand. The computer chips that power our technology. Every gallon of oil, every cubic foot of natural gas, every seed needed to grow our food, every tree that makes our furniture, our homes, the toilet paper you use every single day. The cars we drive, the air conditioning we use, every utensil in your kitchen, every appliance in your home, all of it is made and constructed from resources placed in and on planet earth for free by God! God did that! All life needs water to survive. Life is not possible without water. The clouds bring us the rain we need, replenishing the earth with water, filling our reservoirs. The snow that falls, eventually melting fills our mountain streams, rivers, and lakes, all come to us as a gift from God. Where did all the rainfall and moisture come from? Evaporated water, much of it from the oceans, that God designed, created, and gave us all for free! God did that! The oceans that cover almost 2/3’s of our planet, teeming with fish, providing abundance and food for sustaining our lives! Think of the billions of tons of fish that fishing companies harvest every year from the ocean that were placed in that ocean, free for the taking, by God! The oceans provide the waterways that allow millions of tons of goods and food to be transported around the world to sustain the lives of humans. Great ships powered by the fuel God gave to us in the ground at no charge! God did that! The seeds that man plants for food. Have you ever simply pondered the miraculous wonder of farming/gardening!? I mean, you take this seed that no one made themselves, God made it. Then it is placed in the dirt, into the earth. It is buried alive!! Rain falls onto it, the sun shines on it, time passes by, and voilà, plants, fruits, food, food, and more food, and it replicates its seeds, for more planting once again! We would all starve without it all! God did that! Your wonderful, incredible body. God gave you your brain, God gave you your eyes, God gave you your ears, God gave you your hands, God gave you your mouth, God gave you your heart, God gave you your lungs, God gave you your kidneys, God gave you your liver, God gave you your digestive system that processes in amazing ways, all the food that you eat, and stuff that you drink! Meticulously extracting every last nutrient, delivering it to your vital organs, while also extracting all the junk and delivering it to different organs so you can expel the garbage! God did that! The air you breathe, containing the oxygen we need for life! We are surrounded by it, swimming in it and God never charges us a dime for it! He put it all there for free! Without it, we die! God did that! The babies you hold, the children you love. He gave you all the body parts you need to reproduce. He then biologically knits together a divinely handcrafted baby, hidden from sight in your precious wife’s womb. 9 months later the miracle of childbirth takes place! From within emerges this magnificent, precious, beautiful, masterpiece of God that blows our mind, and literally soothes the soul and spirit just to hold that baby in our arms! A divine therapy if you will. God did that! The talents you possess, your temperament and personality, your ability to think, to learn, create, design and reason, all these things which you use to make a living, to provide for your needs, using the primary tool of the body and brain given to you for free! God did that! The body and blood of Jesus Christ, given to us by God himself. Providing the eternal salvation of our soul we treasure, the full forgiveness of all our sins we’ve received, the guilt and shame we have no more, the perfect and right standing we have with God, the full adoption into God’s family, the magnificent, eternal future we have to look forward to, the salvation we have from our self-destructiveness, the marvelous spiritual gifts God gave us in Christ, the fruits of His Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control!!! Imagine your life, your marriage, your parenting without them!?? Very Scary! Horrifying to imagine your present life and eternity apart from God and all His gifts to us!! God did that! The direct, instant access we have to Almighty God through prayer, all because of what Jesus Christ did for us! We can come boldly with absolute confidence and assurance into the very presence of God, our great high priest Jesus Christ! It is incredible!! We can ask God for anything we need and expect to receive it! God promises to answer our prayers! We can bring any burden, complaint, grief, sorrow, pain, hurt, worry, anxiety, frustration, and care to our God. He will take it all, carry it for us, and give us rest! We can talk to God anywhere, anytime, about anything and we are assured of his glad welcome! He bends down to listen, tenderly cares for us, giving us His undivided attention!! God did that! The awesome love of God poured out on us through Jesus Christ! You are the object of all God’s affection, blessings and unconditional love! Nothing, no one, no event, no power, no evil, no demon, can ever, ever separate us from God’s love for us or stop Him from loving you! God did that! Eph. 3:14-15 (NLT) James 1:17 (NIV)
Look around you right now, look at your home, look at your wife, look at your husband, look at your kids, look at your yard, look at your hands, look at your possessions, look at your place of employment and the work station you are at right now!! God gave you that! God did all that! He enabled all that! Let thanksgiving fill your heart right now and fall from your lips to God our Magnificent Creator, the Source of our life! Read Ps. 136 (NLT) out loud! Read Ps. 145 (NLT) out loud! Read Ps. 147 (NLT) out loud! |