Outdoor Truths

I say the same thing every year at this time. "It's hot!" I guess it's supposed to be, but this year seems to be especially dry and excessively hot. Outside work is relegated to early mornings and late evenings, and I hate that! If you just look outside from the comfort of your own living room, you think, "What a beautiful day! I think I'll work around the yard." Then, you open the door and are smacked back into reality from the backhand of a sweltering heat wave. So, you just stare out as if you are under Mother Nature's house arrest. I don't want to wish away the next two months, so I'll just pray for a unique summer arctic blast or a day or two of steady rain. In my area, we definitely have all four seasons. It seems, however, the most extreme ones always seem the longest. Spring and Fall are never long enough. While my area has pronounced seasons, other areas have less distinct lines. Winters in these zones amount to shoes and a light jacket and summers in some places amount to nothing more than a long vacation in a warmer climate. Nevertheless, these places have seasons too. As long as the axis of the earth tilts, and the earth rotates around the sun, these differences will always take place. One of the Outdoor Truths that has always been paramount is the one that explains how nature points to God. While I always knew this, I never fully embraced it until I began talking to hunters and fishermen. I also never knew it until I read in the Bible that God created nature to give people our first evidence of the existence of God. This means when one makes analogies about nature, God, and man, he is not making things up as he goes. If the Bible says God uses creation to point people to him; that means, well it means that nature is analogous to some very important spiritual things. Not only things like the evidence for the existence of God, but clues about his nature, power, and will. And even clues about you and me and life. One of those clues is found by looking at the seasons. Seasons give us a clear picture of the periods of life. Spring brings new life, summer and fall point to the days of growth and harvest, and winter to a period of death and dormancy. This is the picture of our life but also, for Christians, our hope. Because just as sure as winter buries us in snow, new life in the spring will push its way through the earth to live again. And just as sure death will come to all people, Jesus has promised a resurrection to a new life, a new body, and a new beginning. I hope you see it, but more so, I hope you have it.

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