At times I like to stop what I am doing, look out the window, and observe what creation is doing around me. I suppose I often took such things for granted in former years. I recall back in college a friend commenting on the beauty of a sunset one evening while walking to the dining hall. Though I acknowledged his observation, it was a weak “That’s nice.” He then proceeded to ask me why I did not take more time to enjoy God’s creation. Well, I do take the time now, and perhaps the reason is because I spent several years living in a country where I was surrounded by concrete with few sunsets and virtually no wildlife (rats and bats excluded). I do not take the beauty of all that God created for granted any longer.
Now, back to my window. This morning I stopped to watch some birds in the tree next to my office window. They did their dance and sang their song back and forth to each other. Initially I asked myself why they were dancing around the branch with a constant song bursting forth. As I watched them, the thought came to me, “They are simply doing what they were created to do!” That is what God’s creation does. Creation plays out the role for which God created it.
Then I asked myself the all-important question. As a member of God’s greatest creation, humanity, “Am I doing what God created me to do?” Through the prophet Isaiah (43:21), God spoke of a people “whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise.” We are created for praise, for worship–every day, all day, in all that we do, in all that we say. The birds were doing what they were created to do this morning. Are you and I living in a spirit of praise and worship, like we were created to do?