GODS LIBARY
MERRY SATURDAY BY PARRIS-
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.” Ps.8:11
I learned an amazing fact the other day about beetles. That God must have loved beetles because they end up being the largest variety of species on the earth. There are 400,000 different kinds of beetles that they have classified and scientists are still finding more of them. Tell me, how does one make 400,000 different kinds of beetles? In fact one could be so bold to say, that without beetles the earth would be in big trouble. The ecosystem would become unbalanced. From bringing pollen to flowers, breaking down dung to masquerading as ants, beetles rock in my world.
Joseph Caryl, the English Puritan Bible commentator, proclaimed that “All creatures have a teaching voice, they read us divinity Lectures of Divine Providence.” He taught that every particular beast, or every single creature is able to give instruction . . . the least as well as the greatest, the Mouse as well as the Elephant or the Lyon; the Shrimp as well as Leviathan; the Hysop on the wall, as well as the Cedar in Lebanon; the Grasses of the field, as well as the oaks of Bashan. John Flavell’s reflections on “spiritual husbandry” resembled Francis of Assisi when he affirmed, “It’s an excellent Art to discourse with Birds, Beasts and Fishes, about sublime and spiritual Subjects, and make them answer to our questions.” “Believe me,” he said, thou shalt find more in the Woods than in a [library] corner; Stones and Trees will teach thee what thou shalt not hear from learned Doctors.
“Our five senses are so many Doors whereby . . . External Objects are conveyed to us, and the Soul is to take notice of them.” We hear God speaking in each of these. “From the Sun, to the Stone; from the Cedar, to the Violet; every creature hath a voice to teach us something of God. This whole World is a School of man. All the Creatures spell this to us. . . .” John Bailey of Connecticut spoke of everything in creation as constituting a part of “God’s library,” a vast resource from which people could “read their fill.” From the beauty of open fields to the hard-working faithfulness of a good horse, the natural world provided entry to the mystery of God’s glory. For the person of discerning spirit, the tiniest creature witnesses to the source of its amazing life in God’s providential care. But don’t stop with the creature, he said, go on to the source. “The Fountain must needs have more than the Stream.” In the same way, John Flavell of Dartmouth urged his congregation to “Make a ladder out of earthly materials,” using matter—even cattle and corn fields—to ascend to God. He described “the World below [as] a Glass to discover the World above; Seculum est speculum.”
I pray you take the time to examine God’s library. Take out the God glasses and see, lean forward with your ears and he just might have something to say to you.