EVERYTHING radiates the goodness of God

Sundays are usualy our relax day here in Gulu. Although, every day comes with a blank schedule that we can fill ourselves, Sundays usually are the day we rest and spend hours in communication with God. As a group we are reading Matt Chandler's book called "The Explicit Gospel," and if you haven't read it I would greatly recommend it for your free time. The other night we were discussing chapter 5 which was all about the creation. Today I really allowed myself time to sit and mediate on the things that we read and talked about thta night. In chapter 5 it really gets into the fact that EVERYTHING is radiating the glory and goodness of God. Although we do not always see it because we as humans are too busy giving other things the glory, the glory of God is being decalred in every little thing imaginable. I know so often that we hear 1 Corinthians 10:31 that says "So whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God," and even I until now did not fully understand the meaning behind that verse. That verse is not saying that we cannot love food, and it's not saying that we need to hate food, but it is saying that instead of eating and being in awe of how good the food is we need to eat and be in awe of how good the Creator of the food is. It is even so selfish of us to take pride and to take the glory for creating a meal because God in essence created it. He created the earth out of NOTHING!!! We had a long discussion about how he created something out of nothing, and how in the world do we think that we can take the glory for the things that he created?? It's mind blowing to me.

The Lord has allowed the stars in the sky to be so beautiful, the water in the ocean to be so clear, and the sunset/ sunrise to come up so majestically so that it would better focus our attention to the Creator of those beautiful things. Sometimes, I get wrapped up in the gift and the thing I love and I forget that my heavenly father is the real giver. Matt Chandler says "God declared his creation good, we have a responsibility to steward creatiion well, not as servants to it but as servants to God." I love that exerpt because it is such a good reminder that creation isn't there for us to marvel at, but it is there for us to better understand our creator that we marvel at. Chandler also comments saying "The goodness of creation is designed not to decalre itself but to act as a signpost pointing heavenward." This to me is such a convicting statement, because how can I allow myself to be prideful for the things I think I create or think I should get the glory for when even the galaxy and stars (the most amazing part of the earth) is being humble to allow God to be declared. That just makes me go speechless.

The Lord has given us everything for us to marvel at and love so that we could grow our relationship with Him. Chandler says "any time we orient our heart of hearts around something, we are worshiping that thing. The aim of the Scripture is to direct our worship to the one true God of the universe..." God wants us to love and enjoy the pleasure of life that he has given us but he commands us not to worship them. We are called to worship the God who created those pleasures and not the pleasures themselves. This chapter of the book was very convicting to me and really is allowing me to begin to change the beat of my heart to allow God to be radiated through everything, and better recognize the one true Creator in everything that I find pleasure in.