Reconnecting with Creation

Ever felt like the hustle and bustle of modern life pulls you away from what truly matters? Imagine living by the tides, feeling the rhythmic pulse of nature, and discovering a deeper connection to God's creation. 

As the warmth of spring embraces us, it's the perfect time to slow down and find joy in the simple pleasures around us. Amidst our busy schedules, let's take a moment to breathe in the fresh air, bask in the sunlight, and appreciate the beauty of God's handiwork. Let's be present with our loved ones and trust in the Lord's provision, finding encouragement in the wonders of the natural world. Join me for a heartfelt reminder to savor these moments, fostering love, gratitude, and a renewed sense of purpose.

Now get out into the world and be a woman who intentionally encourages another!

#women #podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Good morning encouragers. How are you? It's Jo. It's been a bit. I have not been on as of late on the podcast because life has been crazy, just crazy, but it feels really good to be back.

Speaker 1: 0:44

I always have thoughts and ideas kind of just stirring and brewing in my heart and my mind. So I wanted to share one of those with you today as a Monday encouragement and let's see what you feel about it. Maybe a little it's a little bit different than what I normally share, but I'm just going to share it anyway and trust that God wants to use it in your life also. So let's start off by praying Dear Lord, thank you for this time, thank you for technology and the ability to share, thank you for the allowance and freedom of you know time, literally to have provision to record in this busy last few weeks that we've had as a family. So let today's message be one of encouragement to her. Let her walk away feeling full and filled with you and that she may turn around and pour it out into someone else In your name. Amen.

Speaker 1: 1:44

So I don't know about you, but I love the beach. I know everybody kind of has a different way of enjoying creation, a different way that you like to relax, and when you think of a place of peace, it might not be the ocean. Maybe you don't like the sand I know there's definitely people that hate the feeling and texture of the sand or you're just like not a hot person. You don't like heat, so the beach would not be ideal for you. I live here in Southern New Jersey and we are about I don't know 45 minutes to an hour from the beach, which to me is incredible. Most of my life I lived in Baltimore and it was like three and a half hours away. I have always been a water baby. I have always felt so free in the water. Swim team kid they had my parents had to, you know, yank me out of the pool. I just love it. I really, really love water and I love swimming and, like I said, I just feel free when I'm in it. So when I'm in the ocean it just feels like I just want to stay here. I love dolphins, they're my favorite animal. So to me, when I think of a place of peace and calm, I think about the beach and the water specifically, and I was just at the beach a few weeks ago and I was just thinking about tides.

Speaker 1: 3:06

So in the last few years I've gotten into boating and when you begin to do boating you learn a whole lot of things. First of all it's kind of terrifying. So you gain a whole fear of nature and respect mad respect that you might not have had before. You realize you are not in control, you are not the boss, and that's a pretty humbling and scary thing. It's also really exciting and thrilling to me. And that's a pretty humbling and scary thing. It's also really exciting and thrilling to me.

Speaker 1: 3:37

But something I didn't expect was when you're boating you really have to live by the tides. And although I knew, logically, that the ocean has tides until you really have to start planning and thinking about your day based on the tides, it's just really different and I had never done that before and it really is. You have to plan your day and when you'll be out on the boat and you have to be wise about it. You can't get stranded. It's scarier the shallower the water is, the scarier it is.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So you know, there's just a lot to learn, but I love the feeling and the lifestyle of living by the tides. That might sound really weird, but there's something about it to me. That just feels so pure and unhurried and purposed and I feel relaxed. I feel relaxed and it really got me thinking about how disconnected I normally live from creation, meaning God's creation, meaning nature. I'm normally not living according to nature, outside of maybe waking and sleeping, which was God's design for day and night. Outside of that, it's not like I base any of my decisions on what is happening in nature. Maybe if it's pouring rain, I might put on a raincoat or grab an umbrella, but I really don't live that way and there's just something really beautiful about living a life feeling so connected to nature, having to base my decisions on it, and it just got me thinking and I want to just encourage you that it is God's design that we are connected to nature.

Speaker 1: 5:23

When he created the Garden of Eden, he actually gave Adam and Eve the task of being over nature, being responsible for the rest of creation. He gave them dominance over it and I just feel like we've come so far and we literally, in the grand scheme of time, have come so far from Eden, but we've also come so far from really living out that call and that responsibility to take care of nature, to think and consider God's creation. You can look at the world and you can think about things like litter, noise, pollution, I don't know, chemicals that are just deteriorating the earth, and I'm not here to, you know, talk too much about that stuff, but it just are these examples of how we're not doing it so well. You know, we're really not taking care of our earth the way that we were asked to take care of it, even respect of animals. I think about that. So the earth was given to us as a gift. It's literally everything we need. We can survive without any processed foods. God made our vegetation to be medicine, so we can live on the earth without anything else. And yet we've filled the earth with lots of other things, and a whole lot of things now get in between ourselves and nature, and I think I just want to encourage you today to find moments, find times, find places where you can go and you can feel for a moment that connection again, because it brings us to awe and wonder, it makes us feel small, it puts us in our place in a really beautiful way when we're thinking about God, and it again helps us live out part of our calling, which is to care and consider the earth. So for me it's the ocean. It does that right away. But maybe for you it's the woods, maybe it's the desert, maybe it's just sitting outside in your backyard and listening to the birds. That might be a simple, practical way to do it. Take a walk on your lunch break and walk around the town you live in. Try to find some green. We're so much on our screens and we're often not in green and I always say to my kids you can have screen time as long as you've had green time. You know, get outside. We don't pull that off perfectly, so don't take that as a parenting tip there, because I'm not totally nailing that. But I really believe in that and I want them to have a balance in their life. But I think we do too as adults. We need to get outside, we need to walk around, we need to consider the beautiful creation, watch a sunset, feel the breeze on your face. Just get outside, will you. It will encourage you.

Speaker 1: 8:13

I heard a quote from Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson. He is not a Christian, but he did believe in something he called a universal being. After studying science and nature, I liked this quote. He said in the woods we return to reason and faith. There is. There, I feel that nothing can befall me in life. There's no disgrace, no calamity which nature cannot repair, which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the bleak air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all the currents of the universal being, as he says, circulate through me.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So, as believers, we know that this is true, that we are part of creation. We are the most special, chosen part of creation and we can look at how God designed Eden in perfect unity and harmony, living together, respecting each other, everyone having their purpose. And you can still see examples of this in nature, of this unity, one element working with another, one animal serving another. We can see unity in nature, which is also so incredibly encouraging and a beautiful reminder of, again, the way we're meant to live. We're meant to live in unity with creation, respecting it and taking care of it, which ultimately brings us back into unity with God and remembering how great he is and how incredible our earth is.

Speaker 1: 10:11

So I wanted just to bring that to you today, this Monday, and maybe you're having a busy life like me, full of tasks and events and a lot of human people stuff, which is awesome, and I hope that you're finding joy and I hope that you're able to be present with your people, regardless of your circumstances, and that the Lord is providing.

Speaker 1: 10:31

But I also hope that you're able to kind of pause your life at some point this season, when it is spring now and the weather is turning to warmer days, clearer skies, that you can get outside and you can remember the beautiful creation that God has given us. You can take a deep breath of the fresh air that he's provided and maybe a little sunlight on your face, and we can remember how incredible our God is and how beautiful the nature and the artwork that literally lives around us singing in praises you can hear the birds singing their praises. We can take it all in and be put back into perspective of what's really most important. So take some time today, take a deep breath, take a walk, get outside, encourage her to do the same and have a fantastic Monday. Hope you found this encouraging this morning. Love to you all. See you again or hear from you again next Monday.