August 6, 2021 – Click here to listen
My wife and I spent some time in North Carolina this week and enjoyed the cool weather and even sat around the fireplace and stared into a crackling fire. This might not be much of a treat to some of you especially my many friends in the heat of the Florida Keys, but it was special for us. We enjoyed seeing the many waterfalls near Mount Pisgah and Lake Toxaway and my son and I caught a few fish in one of the ponds near his mountain home. We marveled at the natural beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it made us feel invigorated just to be alive and enjoying God’s gift to the world.
While visiting I also appreciated fellowship with some longtime friends who live in the area. One of them told me that from his home atop one of the mountains that we could see 72 miles on a clear day. It is a stunning view of the blue ridge mountains and they do look blue.
We are heading to Oregon Saturday for a couple of weeks. There I will fish for salmon at the mouth of a river flowing into the beautiful Pacific along the rugged Oregon coastline and then to a beach house where we will go crabbing and digging for clams on the beach. I imagine relaxing in a hot tub after those adventures.
Then it’s off to California for a week which will include some Bluefin Tuna fishing with an old friend and former employee. And then on to Alaska for nearly two months for more fishing for salmon and halibut and touring that wild and remote state from the Arctic Circle to Fairbanks, to Homer to Seward to Anchorage.
Then it is back to Nevada, Utah, and the surrounding states to visit Zion, The Arches, St. Georges, Bryson, the Grand Canyon and other National Parks and then back to Atlanta and North Carolina for a peek at the changing leaves before returning to the gorgeous turquoise waters of the Florida Keys just in time for more great fishing.
I highly anticipate visiting these scenic areas of beauty once again. I believe that God spent extra time creating these fascinating wonderlands and I can just envision Him smiling and perhaps whistling a tune as He views His creation today.
We serve a creative God. He is the Creator of the world and the heavens, and I am led to a deeper form of worship through seeing the beautiful things he has made. In Psalms 19 it states: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Creation is a part of God’s revelation. It affirms the glory, the power and all of nature testifies to God’s existence. When I mention my upcoming trip to many of my friends, they cannot believe I’m going to fly into Portland infested with Antifa and assorted crazies, legalized drugs, abortion upon demand; an evil stronghold if there ever was one. And then on to Los Angeles California the liberal bastion of hedonism and crime? “Egad! You are entering Sodom and Gomorrah, have you lost your mind?”
Bah! I follow God and trust me my focus will be on Him and His magnificence every step of the way. The key to getting by in this world with a smile on your face is to focus on God and not the flesh that inhabits and defiles. To be sure wickedness abounds and some of these places are epicenters for the hate, cruelty, and evil of Satan, but His beautiful sun keeps right on shining and reflects on the sparkling ocean, His moon shines brightly, His flowers bloom, His elk, moose, deer, and bear roam the wilderness, His salmon head upstream to reproduce and His birds fly south in the winter right on cue.
Only the hardened heart could reject God as we view the glorious creation of God, provided folks will just stop, look, and listen to Him as He whispers to us through His towering pines and billowing seas and breathtaking scenes of nature unfolding each and every day. His majesty has only given us a taste of what is headed our way forever. I get excited just thinking about it.
Focus! Focus on God! And enjoy what you can in this troubled world that we are spoiling. There will be no excuse for those who reject God or deny His existence.
Romans 1:20
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday!