"Let us sit down upon the top of this fair hill. The clear sunshine and the bright air flow into us in streams of life and gladness, while our thoughts are lifted up to God, and our hearts quietly expand to love. Beneath us is that beautiful rolling plain, with it's dark masses of summer foliage sleeping in the sun for miles and miles away, in the varying shades of blue and green, according to the distance or the clouds. There at our feet is the gigantic city, gleaming with an ivory whiteness beneath its uplifted but perpetual canopy of smoke. The vila-spotted hills beyond it, its almost countless spires, its one huge many-steepled palace, and its solemn presiding dome, its old bleached tower, and its squares of crowded shipping—it all lies below us in the peculiar sunshine of its misty magnificence. There, in every variety of joy and misery, of elevation and depression, three million souls are working out their complicated destinies. Close around us the air is filled with the songs of birds, or the pleased hum of insects that are drinking the sunbeams, and blowing their tiny trumpets as they weave and unweave their mazy dance. The flowers breath sweetly, and the leaves of the glossy shrubs are spotted with bright creatures in painted surcoat or gilded panoply, while the blue dome above seems both taller and bluer than common, and is ringing with the loud peals of the unseen larks, as the steeples of the city ring for the nations victory. Far off from the river-flat comes the booming of the cannon, and here, all unstartled, round and round the pond, a fleet of young perch are sailing in the sun, slowly and undisturbedly as if they had a very grave enjoyment in their little lives. What a mingled scene it is of God and man! All so bright, so beautiful, so diversified, so calm, opening out such fountains of deep reflection, and of simple hearted gratitude to our Heavenly Father."
-Frederick W. Faber.
I love this scene. The first time I read this my soul felt at ease with the chaos that is humanity around me. Because wherever there are cannons booming or millions of souls working out their complicated destinies, there are birds singing and tiny insects humming. There is creation amongst us whispering in our ears and endearing our eyes with the unfathomable and mysterious thought of our heavenly Creator. While all the toils of life are among us and make us feel so overwhelmed, there is still the tranquility of the tiny creatures who simply exist to glorify their Maker. Christ has given us the beauty of creation for the display of His glory. He gives us beautiful hills to set us aside from the busy city and sober our thoughts to reflect on Him.
My soul needs this ..
I find, especially lately, that I am consumed with time, and how the ticking clock is always prompting me to get ready for work, or run errands, or whatever event that comes my way, and I serve that time. I am a time server. Constantly thinking to the next hour with such anxiousness that I don't allow my mind the beauty of stillness. It seems I am always looking towards the next thing that might entertain me for a fleeting moment, and then I realize I am amusing myself to death. I am literally looking for futile musings in life until I am in my deathbed. I can’t see past the immediate to meditate on the eternal. And it is Christ who comes to me and says with all compassion and love, “Come to Me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And when I get to this point in the stream of thoughts about existence and what the heck I’m doing with my time, I usually lose it and jump in my car and run away to a mountain, or the woods, or some place where I can see nothing but stars. And then time seems irrelevant and the pang to be closer to this God that is outside of time and that created all this beauty around me gives my soul rest and my mind peace. I am able to take in a deep breath and feel Something in control. I feel the Maker and the order of His creation around me and I can rest in the assurance of His grace by the blood of a spotless Lamb that covers me.
And then I realize ..
People do not know this love,
And then indeed my heart quietly expands to love ..
I feel the Fathers love through His creation and then my heart aches for the many who have no understanding of this divine love. The souls of billions are working out their destinies ..their eternal destinies, and are constantly looking for what might fulfill this void of wonderment at the creation around them. They are searching. Searching for truth, searching for purpose, and searching for belonging amongst 7 billion others. People are searching for love and it’s by the Fathers love that “we who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless.”
He has given us the Gospel ..
And He has given us a commission ..
And so I go ..
Whether it is in 11 different countries or in Newnan, Georgia, I go and proclaim and plead with Christ to grant me the grace to live as He did, to serve and not be served, to deny myself and pick up my Cross and follow Him daily. To love beyond reason so that the Light of the Father might shine so brightly through me, this vessel, this bondservant of Christ, and penetrate the hearts of the blinded. This is why I exist. This is why I was created, to glorify and make known the Creator of all.
