Can the sun, moon and stars speak to my anxious thoughts?
I appreciate the incredible beauty of the Pacific Northwest for beauty’s sake. And it IS beautiful! But this morning God nudges me, from Genesis, to go deeper – to keep gazing until I see HIM.
“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.
Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.
GENESIS 1:9-10
I pause to ask, “So what? Is there a connection between creation and anxiety? What might I see if I looked beyond – to the Creator?”
My son, an outdoorsman by hobby and profession, once told me that one year in high school he didn’t get outside enough. When I asked what difference it made, he responded, “God got small.”
I think about his words as I gaze outside my window at the trees, the Delta Ponds and the cloudy sky. I see beauty, but I feel anxiety – some people and upcoming situations are weighing heavily on my heart.
And I wonder how God’s Words and those of my son might impact me today – the way I pray, the way I think, the way I walk out my day.
I reach for a newly purchased poetry book by Killian McDonnell, Aggressive Mercy, and read the poem entitled: “Jesus and the Paparazzi,” prefaced with Mark 6:31, 33:
"He (Jesus) said to them (apostles), Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while… Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them."
Here’s how McDonnell concludes his re-telling of Jesus feeding the five thousand:
He blesses five loaves and two fish
we find among the crowd.
More than 5,000 eat their fill
with twelve baskets left over.
If you pray for bread with empty hand,
why are you surprised
that God who made the sun and stars
places ten loaves in your apron?
And suddenly I feel God’s gentle nudge to give my anxious thoughts to Him, the One who created the sun, moon and stars…and then imagine… and anticipate my own apron full of ten loaves.
TO CONSIDER: If you lined up your anxiety against the Creator’s power, how might it make a difference in your life today?
