Before reading this, i urge every reader to look up Psalm 139 and reflect on it for a few moments. For sake of ease, here are links to it in the ESV, NKJV, NASB, KJV, and NIV. Now there's no excuse that you couldn't read it because you didn't have a Bible handy.
It has been upon me to condemn sin much lately, as it seems oft-overlooked because we're afraid of offending people. Of course we should never be malicious, and our intent should always be out of the two greatest commandments; love for God, and love for our neighbor. It's easy to get our motives mixed up, and the best method of correction (of self) is solitude with God. Prayer, reading His Word, and meditation.
But this post runs a different course.
Honestly, i'm not into the whole, "God showed me this while i was counting change the other day," thing. Story-telling, especially that of true stories, has never piqued my interest as a person reading or hearing about God. Even C.S. Lewis' story-telling, though his fiction is a thing of beauty and deserving of much respect, his true-to-life reflections make reading seem slow at times (in this far-from-connoisseur's opinion). But nevertheless, he had learned something, and felt the original medium in which it was originally revealed to be the most obvious approach when it came time to relay it. And so true-to-life story-telling of the mundane is not without purpose.
So here's an attempt at relaying a lesson taught to me.
This past Tuesday while on our way home from running some errands, my dad and i were stopped at a light, and across the street in the ditch was some tall coastal grass (about waist-high, depending on how tall you are - i guess it could've been about calf-high to Goliath or about chest-high to Nicodemus). The sun was setting, the wind was blowing softly, and the waves in the stalks were some of the most beautiful i've ever seen. If you've ever watched The Count of Monte Cristo, during the fight between Edmond and Fernand in the barley field; that's how this looked save the budding sorghums. With ripples reflecting in the distance had that fake-looking sheen to it that's often seen in cloud-filled, copper sunsets. My dad and i concurred that it was a beautiful sight, and we exchanged similar and generalized, "God is good," kind of statements.
But as plain as it is -just grass- it's something glorious. It's something holding onto that original design of God. Though it's been several thousand years since He created the first blades of grass, it still retains the same makeup as the original design. It reaches Heavenward and, like the Seraphim, cries out, "Holy, holy holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!"
From the grassy lawns to the baby still being knitted together in the womb, the earth speaks -screams even- of His glory. In verse sixteen of Psalm 139 (did you read it??), it says that He saw our unformed substance. All the glory we may give to God was presumably hidden in the earth, yet nevertheless it was there, in the earth in those ages from whence (this is the result of reading English literature; please pardon) we came to be. When He spoke the earth into being along with the quadrillions of stars in the universe, He saw the dirt He would form us with. And He designated a portion of glory to it that we might give back to Him. That glory is in you, crying out to be released back to Him.
There is glory in the very carbon atoms of those blades of grass, and He designed it to give glory back to Himself. And if we won't return it, yea, even the rocks will cry out. He will be glorified.
Truly, the earth is full of His glory, and it cannot be contained.
We may try to withhold it, but our bones, dry and dusty as they may be by the time of His magnificent return, will be helpless but to shake and rattle and shout in chorus with the rocks, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!"
There is no better place to start this exudation than by seeking the light of His glory, Jesus Christ. Only when He resounds within can He resonate without.
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