Creation is constantly testifying to the sovereign power and meticulous care of God. I challenge you to read psalms like Psalm 104 and ask God to open your eyes, to slow you down, and to stir up wonder in your soul. As we engage in the rest of our summer activities and enjoy God’s creation, I am praying that God calibrates our eyes, ears, and heart through his Word to receive the testimony of his creation, leading us to join the psalmist in saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great!” (Psalm 104:1)

It happens every summer.

We make plans to slow down and rest after a busy school year, only to realize in July that we have neither slowed down nor rested. Also, while we have been enjoying God’s creation, I realize that I haven’t allowed my time in nature to do what God intended or what creation itself longs to do. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been outdoors this summer, enjoying hiking, fishing, and canoeing. But it isn’t enough to be active or even to enjoy creation. The question is, “Are we listening to it?” And if we are listening, are we allowing what we hear to cultivate wonder and lead us to worship?

Far too often, our pace and plans take us from one activity to the next, or we visit beautiful places without pausing to listen and hear what God could be saying to us in those places. He is speaking, but are you listening?

Creation is Testifying

David begins Psalm 19, saying:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1–4)

The heavens that he spoke into existence with a word are constantly echoing back praise to him and testifying about his matchless glory to the ends of the earth. Are you listening?

In 2002, Paul Marcarelli broke onto the scene as the Verizon test man. Whether he was popping up out of sewers, trudging through swamps, sitting in a busy office, or walking through a desert, he always asked, “Can you hear me now?” It was brilliant advertising, asking a relevant question in those primitive days of cell phone usage for the masses as it was a question that all of us have asked: “Can you hear me now?”

That’s actually a question that we need to consider about God as we engage in a summer of fun activities in beautiful places: “Can you hear him now?” If creation is declaring his glory, are we listening? More than that, are we letting what we hear affect us in the way that it should?

Don’t get me wrong, we say things on our vacations like, “Aren’t those mountains majestic?” or “Isn’t the ocean so powerful?” But too often, I stop the meditation short in the realm of my personal enjoyment. I have to imagine that the mountains are saying something like, “If you think I am majestic, you should see the One who made me.” Or the ocean is declaring, “You should see the power of the One who put me in place and told me exactly how far I could go toward the land.”

In all of their beauty, the mountains and oceans that we enjoy on our vacations are merely signposts to a greater majesty and glory. Are we listening?

In Knowing God, J.I. Packer says, “Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that spawns great thoughts of man and leaves room for only small thoughts of God.”

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