#A little furlough.....

43: #Lessons from Nature

Perhaps because I'm a Biology and Marine Science Instructor I'm continuously amazed at how nature teaches us about God. It is also interesting to see how easily Biblical Faith can be integrated into the concepts I try to present to the students. Which brings me to this post:

George Washington Carver was an award-winning African-American scientist and inventor. He is best known for his improvements to agriculture, and the many uses he devised for the peanut, e.g. peanut butter, peanut brittle, peanut oil. Carver was also the founder of Tuskegee University – a historic black college in the USA.

One day while reflecting on the Creator and His handiwork, Dr. Carver commented: “I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in” (http://www.quotes4life.net/authors/g/george-washington-carver).  

Dr. Carver understood that nature’s splendor is more than just something to delight our senses. He knew that by exploring the wonders of the natural world, people could learn great spiritual lessons. 

A rainbow, for instance, is God’s assurance that He will never again destroy the earth by a flood. Even the scientific truth of the earth’s circular nature was established by God – see Isaiah 40:22.

           

However this is not a discussion about the Bible vs. Nature—it is simply to point out that one of the greatest lessons we can learn from studying the natural world is our dependence on God. Just as nature’s marvels could not exist without the Creator, we too would be nothing without Him.

Let us listen as our Creator speaks to us through nature. Let us be thankful that after completing many wondrous creations He took the time to stoop down and fashion man from the dirt of the earth—and indeed He is still working on us!!

Carver’s epitaph reads: "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." http://www.biography.com/people/george-washington-carver-9240299#legacy

Won't we try to do the same?

SS Thoughts 42: #Broken Vessels

Pottery making is an art—one that I’ve yet to learn!! I’m informed that creating a beautiful piece of pottery involves many steps, e.g. selecting the right type of clay, aging the clay – “until it stinks”, kneading, shaping, firing (baking), and then glazing the final object.¹ If after all of this harsh treatment, the vessel has not cracked or been marred, then it is ready to be used in whatever manner it was created for.

But sometimes a previously perfect piece of pottery can break while being used. It takes a Master Potter to restore it to its original form – sometimes even better than it was in the first place!!

  

God Himself is the Master Potter and we are merely the clay to be formed into the design He has chosen. "O Lord, you are our father. We are the clay; you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand" (Isa. 64:8 NIV).

Jesus as a potter is a beautiful image that reminds us of His tender care for our wellbeing. Just as a potter can reshape a dented vessel into something beautiful again, Jesus can reshape our broken lives – to being virtually without spot or blemish. He has also promised to restore this earth into a beautiful place where we will live with Him, or better still, where He will live with us! It is good to know that we are in the hands of a loving Potter who wants to have a close relationship with His human vessels.²

Perhaps we can regard our trials on this earth as the heating in the fire that will make us ready to be used by Him. May my perspective always be that my small bruises can never compare to His innocent body being broken, and His blood spilled out, for MY sins. Won’t YOU submit to His kneading and reshaping in YOUR life?

¹Good News Magazine  Oct-Nov 1980 Vol. XXVII, No. 9  ISSN 0432-0816}

²Teacher’s Comments - Adult SS Lessons Oct 24-30 2015

I really like this song “Broken And Spilled Out": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFYoQ-8Mpx8”

I like this one too - shared on my FB post - "A Potter and His Clay" by Wintley Phipps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIatZcknct4&feature=youtu.be

[Got up this morning and felt impelled to do a little writing]

SS Thoughts #41: Washed and Made New

I believe the phrase “water off a duck’s back” is familiar to most persons. It alludes to the ability of birds to shake water from their feathers. It also reminds us to let the mean, discouraging things that people say, slide off us—like water off a duck’s back.

Facilitating my students’ constructive grasp of knowledge about pollution in general, and marine pollution in particular, made me reflect that it is not so easy to shake off dirt anymore! Sometimes as seabirds dive, it is impossible for them to get the oil or other garbage off their feathers when they resurface.

Oftentimes, the birds have to be rescued and washed—over and over again—in order to remove oil from their feathers and from their mouths. Otherwise they will die, e.g. from hypothermia, inability to fly, or swallowing the oil. But they are not washed with just anything. The best cleaner appears to be Dawn dishwashing liquid – the original brand!!

Thinking about seabirds and their oil predicament, reminds me of our own situation on earth. Living on this earth leaves us covered over with the ugliness of sin—and the only thing that can clean us up, and save us from death, is being washed in the blood of Jesus, 1 John 1:7. Jesus has offered to wash us..... He does it gently, but thoroughly—in His blood that was shed just once, on Calvary, for the remission of our sins. Thus we are fitted to live on a new earth that He will also recreate. 

Won’t you allow Him to wash you and clean you? 

Won’t you accept His offer of eternal life on that new earth?