The Ongoing Work of Creation
I am writing these words while sitting in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport. In a little over three hours I’ll board a plane headed for Salt Lake City. Once there I’ll be picked up by my friend, Stan Burman, and we will head north to Yellowstone National Park. I’d be lying if I said I was not extremely excited. Photographing Yellowstone in winter has been on my wish list for a very long time. I have visited this park a number of times before but never in winter. Numerous people have told me that Yellowstone in winter is extra special.
I sometimes get the feeling that the Psalmist must have just visited our country’s first national park when he wrote the words, “How marvelous are your works, O Lord, in wisdom you have made them all.” What an incredible place it is! This ancient caldera is home to an abundance of majestic wildlife. Bears, wolves, elk and bison get most of the attention but there are many more terrific species inhabiting the park. Yellowstone also contains scores of magnificent waterfalls, rivers and lakes. And then there are the thermal features. I never tire of watching one geyser or another erupt high in the sky. I always marvel at the thermal pools and mudpots. Depending on the timing of your visit, the wildflowers can be spectacular too. The sights, sounds and smells of Yellowstone make for an inspiring encounter with God’s Creation.
Yellowstone is also the kind of place that reminds us in a very powerful way that God’s Creation is an ongoing process. God did not finish His work on the sixth day. Although God did, indeed, rest on the seventh day of Creation He was not done. To this very day He is still the Creator God at work. He is the One who “makes all things new.”
I’m thankful that there are places like Yellowstone where the ongoing work of God seems so obvious but you do not have to be at such a special place to recognize this neglected truth. Wherever you are, if you look close enough you will see the hand of the Creator still at work.
–Chuck
(This image of Castle Geyser was taken during a summer trip to Yellowstone NP a few years ago.)