The Creator's Pizzaz

In Luke 12:22ff Jesus spoke about being anxious and used examples from nature…ravens, lilies, grass in the field, and He said, “Consider the ravens,” and “consider the lilies.” The word “consider” comes from the Greek word κατανοέω and the meaning is interesting…it isn’t so much, hear what I am saying and move on. Isn’t that what we often do when we read the Bible…we read our passage for today and go about our business, but that isn’t what Jesus meant. My Greek dictionary says the word “consider” means “to pay attention, notice, observe; consider, contemplate;” and adds, “this word has a strong implication that the attention paid is intense, and the contemplation is broad and thorough, resulting in complete understanding.”

I’ve never read someone who takes that word to heart in contemplating creatures more than Annie Dillard. Have you ever considered why God made so many different types of birds? Why did He make so many colors, so many songs, so many sizes? Annie, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek said,

“What is going on here? The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork – for it doesn’t, particularly, not even inside the goldfish bowl – but that it all flows so freely and wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, fringed tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.”

I’ll be honest, I’ve never thought of that, but I think God does indeed love pizzazz! Pay attention to what He is doing, to what He has made, and listen…read His Word, listen to His words in creation, and learn as it declares the glory of God.

Kim and I planted several wildflower seeds this Spring and it seemed to take forever…the Cosmos came first and I kept watching the Zenas…one had a bud, the bud finally flowered, and now all of them are starting to follow its lead. What we are going to be takes time to develop. I am reading Sinclair Ferguson’s book Union With Christ with a group of men. In his chapter on Colossians 3:1-17 he said,

“When this Christ (the One described in Col 1:15-20)—as He clearly did for Paul—we realize that our primary focus is not in fact on our union with Him. It is on Jesus Christ Himself.”

It takes discipline to see creation like Annie Dillard or Mary Oliver, it takes discipline to see God in all things and to worship Him, it takes discipline to seek the things above, but I’ve found that the things below…the created things…can help me set my mind on Him.

I often sit and thank Him for the blue and green of the sky and grass, for the red and blue of the cardinal and the bluejay, for the belting song of the little wren, and for His beauty that I see in my wife, my girls, and my grandsons. When I look around I see His pizzazz and it makes me worship Him all the more!