How Nature Teaches Us About God
“What does depend mean?” My daughter looked up from her reading practice page. I paused before launching into a group of fumbled words, stopping myself each time I accidentally used the word in question.
This is a familiar scene in our home with small children. Each new day offers a new word or idea my husband and I must try to communicate. Some days go better than others. Throughout the years of questions, I’ve latched onto the helpful phrase, “Here, I’ll use it in a sentence.”
I do this because sometimes the definitions we learn don’t make complete sense until we see them played out in real life. This is true of regular old vocabulary, and it can also be true of words of Scripture.
DEFINING GOD
How often do we come to ideas in Scripture that are hard to wrap our minds around?
Faithfulness. Power. Glory. Sovereignty. Provision. These are concepts we might fumble over in our definitions, knowing that no matter how hard we try, we can’t quite convey the idea.
Yet our loving Father helps us, for he too has chosen to use such words in a sentence.
He does this in various ways throughout the scriptures, but one of the biggest is through the world around us.
THE SCHOOLROOM OF NATURE
Each day, as we step out into the world God has created, we are faced with a living picture of his revelation, God working out his attributes in a sentence.
David proclaimed that the heavens declare the glory of God and that the skies pour forth his handiwork (Ps. 19:1). Paul tells us the invisible attributes of the Lord have been perceived ever since the beginning, so no human has an excuse for his ignorance (Rom. 1:18–20). Job said even the beasts of the field and the birds of the air acknowledge, display, and teach us about God’s sovereignty (Job 12:7–10).
When we walk out the door each day, we step into a world that God constructed to deepen our understanding of him. In the Bible we read that the Lord is faithful to his people (Deut. 7:9), then we step outside to see this faithfulness in the rising sun. We feel it in the rain that beads on our arm, as it completes the cycle it’s been performing for generations.
We read in the scriptures about God’s design for community (Gen. 2:18), then we see this communal design in the delicate ecosystems beneath our feet that are interdependent.
God’s Word tells us that this present time is passing away, then we confirm this as we gaze at a night sky that makes us feel tiny. The words of Ecclesiastes sink deep into our hearts, as we watch leaves bud in spring and are then mere months later are tossed into the compost pile (Eccl. 1:4; Isa. 40:8). Nature demonstrates what “life is a vapor,” the preacher’s refrain in Ecclesiastes, really means.
NATURE’S DEEPER LESSONS
Besides the truths of God’s goodness, nature unfortunately also shows us the deeper meaning of words like sin and destruction.
We labor in the heat of the sun as we pull weeds that wrapped themselves around our crops, and we witness firsthand what the Bible means when it says that sin entangles us (Heb. 12:2). Fields decimated by drought show us what thirsting for righteousness looks like (Matt. 5:6) and it impress upon us how greatly we ourselves need living water (John 7:37).
Whether we learn from a seed that grows to produce a handful of tomatoes, or we find God’s kindness in shade from a maple tree, God teaches us through his creation. After all, if he is before all things and in him all things hold together (Col. 1:17), how would creation not proclaim his truths?
Whether through abundance or lack, creation constantly speaks of God’s power, majesty, glory, provision, and faithfulness, so that his creations may glory in him all the more.
WORKING BACKWARDS
What if, instead of a definition, we only had a sentence to figure out a word’s context? While it’s true we learn much from example, my children have often created definitions that make no sense. I remember my own mistake as an eight-year-old watching a televised auction and wondering why Mr. Anonymous would want to buy so many items. Clearly, we are dependent on instruction.
We can learn from God’s truths played out in the world, but we can’t rely on creation alone to teach us these truths. For a full understanding of God, we also need the definition—we need to start with truth.
Too often, we begin in the wrong spot. In his systematic theology, Louis Berkhof comments on this philosophical approach, writing, “Men ceased to recognize the knowledge of God as something that was given in Scripture, and began to pride himself on being a seeker after God.” Meaning, we sought his revelation from what we could observe in the world.
If you look throughout Scripture, you’ll find we are anything but seekers. Instead the Bible tells the opposite story: God formed us. He breathed the breath of life into us. He called Abraham. He rescued the Israelites as his own nation. And later he became flesh, dwelt among us (John 1:1), and secured our salvation when we couldn’t.
We are always merely receivers. We receive the Word of God as revelation first, and then we understand these truths more clearly as we see them played out in creation. C.S. Lewis sums it up well: “Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me."
WORKING TOGETHER
In his kindness, God gave us a world that proclaims the truths of Scripture. We can immerse ourselves in the revelation of God’s character in Scripture and his mighty acts throughout history. Then we can look out our windows and see their meanings played out before us.
The plants sprouting from our garden; the rain falling against our windowpanes; the trees we lean against at the park. They all speak of their creator. Crashing waves give deeper meaning to the word power. Vines in a garden deepen our understanding of drawing our strength from the vine of Christ.
All things are “from him, to him, and through him” (Rom. 11:36). Are we seeking to understand God’s words about who he is?
Look around—he’s using them in a sentence.
Brianna Lambert is a wife and mom to three, making their home in the cornfields of Indiana. She loves using writing to work out the truths God is teaching her each day. She is a staff writer with GCD and has contributed to various online publications, such as Morning by Morning and The Gospel Coalition. You can find more of her writing paired with her husband’s photography at lookingtotheharvest.com.