Today's Reading: Job, Chapter Thirty-seven
Elihu continues to "teach" Job about the nature of God. We move into the natural world as the handiwork of God's domain.
He easily sees God in the storm and the wind and the rain.
When God sends the torrential downpours, the animals have no recourse but to hide in their dens. This gives a strong sense of the sovereignty of God over even the wild beasts.
There was a sense of mystery regarding the natural world that we have lost today.
Today, a quick google search reveals, "Lightning shines because the massive flow of electrical current during a lightning strike rapidly heats the air to extremely high temperatures, causing the air molecules to become incandescent and emit a bright, blue-white light."
I'm not supporting a return to ignorance, but scientific explanation does take some of the mystery out of the world.
As a person of faith, I think it is important for us to acknowledge the Creator even as we may see evolution as a tool in the Creator's belt! But if we see God working with all of the forces in nature or maybe, as a part of these forces, it can restore the sense of awe and wonder.
I know atheists who still find a sense of awe in the universe when the night sky is on full display. The connection to that sense of vastness for me is one of the ways I see the Divine at work.
As we see spring unfolding all around us, where can you see God acting as a part of this and take joy from it? We, too, are a part of the created order and it is good to acknowledge our distant cousins all around us. I believe that this can be an important spiritual discipline for us to add to our tool belt!
Our prayer was written hundreds of years ago from what would now be modern Turkey. It could have been written yesterday.
Prayer for the day:
O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our siblings the animals to whom you gave the earth as their home in common with us.
We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of humanity with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to you in song, has been a groan of travail. May we realize that they live not for us alone but for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life. Amen.
Prayer by Basil the Great, Caesarea of Cappadocia, 4th Century
Photo by John Fowler via Flickr.com. Used under the Creative Commons license.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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