Doing Nature on a Sunday Morning

   This past Sunday, we had "Church in the Park" down here on our Island. Our church has done this for a number of years, from back when we were a small congregation, up till today, when we fill a much larger area. I used to walk around the back of the crowd and estimate how many people were in attendance on any particular occasion, but now it is too hard to even get any kind of an accurate figure, so I don't try. It is a good time, and one of the neat things about it is the people who show up at this popular tourist spot by the ocean. You can spot them as they stroll along the path by the Sound, hear the music and are drawn in to participate. Some listen for a few minutes, but others stay for the whole service. Many individuals will say later that they first came to our church after experiencing it at the Park.

   Two scenes from Sunday stand out to me this morning. The first happened when the worship leader told us to stand and turn around while singing the next song. As we looked, not toward the stage where the musicians were playing, but toward the water, a sense of the glory of God through His creation filled the place. It was a beautiful moment.

   The second was the arrival of one of God's most wonderful creations. While the music played, or our preacher spoke, monarch butterflies began to flit through the crowd, and my attention turned more to the winged creatures than it did to the message of the morning.

 

   The weather was great, there was a little sea breeze through the live oak trees, the bugs were lying low, and some of the little kids were chasing the butterflies in the open space between the congregation and the pastor.

   It was easy to worship the creation rather than the Creator, but that would have been wrong, just as wrong as making an idol in the shape of a butterfly and bowing down before it.

   Mayre Lou used to have a flight instructor whose favorite line when He wanted to do something else besides go to church on the Sabbath was "I'm doing nature today". I too could have been "in church" but doing nature just the same.

   The verse for today in Psalm 97:

   The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory.
   All of the things that we see and admire around us are great, and God has placed them there for us to enjoy, but I pray that He will keep my mind on Him and not just on His.