Finding God In The Beauty Of Creation

​Several years ago, I met my friend Brenda. And when you get to know Brenda, one of the first things you learn is that she loves horses.

I admit. When I first met her and she'd talk about her relationship with horses, I thought it sounded odd. Mainly because it truly was a relationship she was describing.

As time went on, though, and she'd talk about the healing she experienced through them, and how others experienced it as well, I began to believe her. I began to consider that maybe horses were created for something more than human pleasure.

I think one of the reasons I started to believe this was because she described a peace that came through horses that I myself experienced when I took a walk in the woods. I began to consider that horses and a mountain trail weren't all that different.

Last week, Brenda let me know she'd be showing her two horse friends—Adam and Noble—at a horse show in Lexington, VA this weekend. I knew I'd be traveling past there on my way home from a work event, so I told her I'd like to stop and experience this whole horse show world.

And what an experience it was.

I think the first thing I noticed was a truth: Brenda really did have a relationship with these horses. They REALLY did understand her—and she them. And there is no other way to describe this relationship than love.

Their connection is love.

And when they entered the ring to show, that love showed up as two creatures—woman and horse— willingly (or maybe stubbornly in Noble's case) working together to perform something magical.

For to look at them as simply navigating a course of jumps is to miss the beauty of what is really happening out there. Much like I came to understand the beauty of a walk in the woods was much more beautiful than a man walking among the aesthetic pleasures of nature.

Sometimes my Christian faith get interpreted in a very human-centered way. God loves me. God speaks to me. Creation was made for me.

But my bible paints a much broader picture than this.

Genesis repeatedly describes creation as good before humans ever arrived. The Psalms describe the heavens as shouting out God's glory. Jesus talks about how much God pays attention to the sparrows and the wildflowers. Paul wrote about ALL of creation groaning and longing for God.

The biblical story doesn't portray humans as the only part of creation containing evidence of God. It portrays ALL of creation with God's fingerprints ALL over it.

I'll be be honest, as my long work week drug on, it got harder to think about stopping on my way home. But lately I've been actively reminding myself that my world gets to feeling empty not because the world is empty, but because I do not often enough stop to fill myself with the beauty this world has to offer me.

My emptiness can often be far more laziness that emptiness.

As I left Brenda and Noble and Adam yesterday afternoon, I felt God remind me that his presence is everywhere—it is truly in every created thing. For me to not believe that or feel that is not evidence otherwise, but rather, evidence that my attention might be too focused on me.

Too lazy to look outside of me.

God is wanting to talk to me in far more places than I often stop to listen.

I am so glad I stopped in Lexington, VA.

And I am oh so grateful for all I heard.