Tuesday, 9:17 AM - I am constantly looking for wildlife to photograph. My camera accompanies me everywhere: on hikes, walks, and even at the ready in the passenger seat of my vehicle each day. But how often, because I am always looking for wildlife, do I fail to see other wonders of creation around me?  

Animals are unpredictable; I never know when I’ll capture (or miss) a great shot. But the majority of the time, nothing is encountered when I’m out looking for wildlife. Like the deer hunter who trudged into the woods at 4 AM only to come home without ever firing a shot, the wildlife photographer can also feel frustration spending hours in the field without a single photograph to show for it.

This morning was no different as far as the wildlife was concerned: I didn’t find anything I was looking for. But, something was different this morning. I didn’t find that for which I was looking; but I saw. I saw different subjects; equally beautiful subjects.

I’m not a bug or flower photographer. I’ve walked past wildflowers on many occasions without notice. That’s not what I’m looking for. But this time, they caught my attention. Rather than looking, I saw; and some beautiful images were captured.
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So instead of going out looking for something in particular, I’ll go out and see what is there. Let the beauty come to me. Stop looking and see! ​

​The religious leaders of Jesus’ day failed to see their Savior because they were looking for something else. They eagerly anticipated a leader that would bring political independence and freedom from Rome’s oppression. They were looking for a Messiah with a scepter; and therefore they failed to see a servant-messiah ‘meek and lowly in heart’ (a self-description of Jesus, Matthew 11:29).  
 
Looking is active; we usually only find that which we seek. Seeing is passive; we are brought to discover what we would normally miss because of our biased expectations. When we look with preconceived expectations, we fail to see. How many have failed to see Jesus because they were looking for something else? The evidence for our Creator and Savior is everywhere. Can you see it? Or are you looking for something else?  

​[i] 1 Kings 4:33
[ii] https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-kingfisher-bird-get-its-name
[iii] Matthew 4:19
[iv] Luke 5:4
[v] John 21:6
[vi] https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Belted_Kingfisher/id
[vii] 2 Corinthians 4:3
[viii] Acts 5:29

Teaching my first Creation Speaks lesson using the Canada Goose as the illustration. We had a great time. The kids were fascinated as I pulled down the curtain that covered the Goose and it turned into a 15 minute Q&A session. But moving on to the point, it hit home that we, as Christians, have a responsibility to help lead others to Christ. My hope is that anytime they see a Goose flying overhead or sitting in a pasture, they remember to tell someone about Jesus!  See the article here. 

​Monday, 9:54 AM - Latitude: N 34.870200, Longitude: W 83.810200. 

​There’s something about standing upon a mountain. For some it may be a sense of conquering the world; for others, a way to meet with God. But there is something special about a mountain. It was on a mountain that God met with Moses in the burning bush; it was on a mountain that Jehovah spoke to the children of Israel; it was on a mountain that David desired to build the Temple of God; it was on a mountain that God spoke with Elijah in the still small voice; it was on a mountain that Christ was transfigured before the disciples. 

My choice to head to Brasstown Bald wasn’t spiritual, but just a matter of looking for a fun day-trip to get out in God’s creation. And why not a mountain? Brasstown Bald is the highest peak in Georgia at 4,784 feet. A parking lot near the top and paved path to the summit make it an easy family hike rather than a daunting explorer’s climb. Being off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we decided to make the trip. Reading one website that suggested bringing a jacket to the breezy summit even in summer should have tipped us off for what was in store.

Being January, it was cold.  Not as cold as it could be, but it was 41 degrees when leaving the house. We made the near two-hour drive, at one point passing a group of dark-brown, winter-coated does and fawns. As we passed through Helen, the temperature was near 45 degrees. The last few miles were somewhat nauseating switchbacks up into the North Georgia Mountains. And as we climbed the road up the Bald, the dashboard thermometer continued to drop until it steadied in the parking lot at 37 degrees.

​As soon as we opened the doors, a great and strong wind blew through the car. And perhaps the thought “why are we here?” blew into our minds. Although the Lord might not be in the wind, the roar was just as impressive. Being on a high peak looking out over miles and miles, you could hear waves of wind bursts roaring like invisible clouds over the peaks and valleys. And it was cold; windy cold; clothing-piercing cold. In fact, “due to subzero temperatures” (from a sign posted on the locked lavatory doors) the mountaintop facilities were closed. But we climbed nonetheless.  

As we left the exposed parking lot with the wind ripping across it and entered the tree-lined path to the summit, the cutting edge of the wind was dulled. The girls had fun finding icicles hanging off the small rock outcrop ledges near the path’s edge. The paved trail was a mere sixth-tenths of a mile, but with the 18 pound pack on my back, I admit I was left a bit breathless (but blamed it on the altitude). Upon reaching the top, we climbed the partially ice covered steps to the top of the lookout platform for the view. 
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What a gorgeous sight, looking far into the distance. Perhaps it  is the view that draws man to the mountain? From the summit, we can see further than our normal sea-level view allows. And perhaps we can better appreciate our God’s ability to look far into the future, and even the past, from His vantage point seated in the heavens. For Him, no future is too distant to see; nothing is out of His sight. 

“THIS WORLD – including its natural wonders – gives us foretastes and glimpses of the next world. Every joy on earth is an inkling, a whisper of greater joy. The Grand Canyon, the Alps, the Amazon rain forests, the Serengeti Plain – these are rough sketches of the New Earth. One day we may say, ‘The best parts of the old world were sneak previews of this one.’ All our lives we’ve been dreaming of the New Earth. Whenever we see beauty in water, wind, flower, deer, man, woman, or child, we catch a glimpse of heaven. Just like the Garden of Eden, the New Earth will be a place of sensory delight; breathtaking beauty, satisfying relationships, and personal joy. God poured Himself, His creativity, and His love into making Eden for His creatures. But at that time, that’s all we were: His creatures, His image-bearers. Now that we are both His children and His bride, chosen out of the human race to live with Him forever, would we expect more or less than Eden?”  - Randy Alcorn, Heaven
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We can create a watch, but God has created an entire universe; a perfect chronometer, the cogs of gravity spinning the wheels of orbits in perfect precision. Glory to God! 

John Muir wrote in Travels in Alaska: “The care laden commercial lives we lead close our eyes to the operations of God as a workman, though openly carried on, that all who will look may see.”  (chapter 15)

Watching the Gemenid meteor shower. Here again is depicted the grace of God: huge stones are hurtling toward earth, yet the atmosphere is so perfectly designed by Him to burn them up before reaching the surface and leveling a patch of civilization. What if the atmosphere were only slightly thinner? BOOM! And ignorant man… ignorant of his peril, and equally ignorant of God's wonders and grace, goes about his day not even knowing that the beauty of a meteor showing is playing out in the heavens above. Much less knowing its significance.

God has revealed Himself in nature, in the Scriptures, and in the person of His Son. But ​where are the Christians who see nature the way William Bartram saw it? Even A.W. Tozer chided: “The idea that God reveals Himself in the creation is not held with much vigor by modern Christains” (Knowledge of the Holy, p 13).

​The theories of Darwin have robbed us, along with the modern environmental movement which crosses the boundary into idolatrous nature worship, and have made Christians afraid to admire and write admiringly about this “glorious apartment of the boundless palace of the Sovereign Creator” as pre-Darwinian men like Bartram once did. 

Although many Christians do not regard the wonders of Creation, Tozer continues, “...it is, nevertheless, set forth in inspired Word, especially in the writings of David and Isaiah… ‘the heavens declare thy glory, Lord, in every star thy wisdom shines'…”.
 
Why should we fear to publish our love and admiration for nature, His creation, with its “infinite variety of animated scenes, inexpressibly beautiful and pleasing, [and] equally free to the inspection and enjoyment of His creatures”? (Bartram, Travels, page 13).

Friday, 7:43 AM – ​The fall roadsides frequently paint the picture that it was a tough night for the White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus). With the disappearance of wolves and large cats from the landscape, the deer’s only predator has become man, whether behind a rifle or behind a steering wheel. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spied several carcasses making wintertime fodder for the hosts of Black Vultures and Turkey Vultures now populating the countryside. Always interested in what I might find, I constantly scan the roadsides, but usually have no plans of stopping unless I see an antlered skull to add to my collection. 
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Nearing the end of my 40-minute early morning drive to work, I spied a large brown body laying in the median near the truck stop on Highway 78… and there were antlers! I made a quick u-turn to verify, and then sped off to my office to get a pick up truck.  

DOA deer with antlers always disappear quickly here in Georgia. A few weeks ago a nice 6-point buck got his back leg hung up while jumping a wrought-iron fence. He was hanging face down, but was still alive. Before the police officer could arrive to end his suffering, there was already a small crowd of spectators waiting in line hoping to get some venison or a nice display rack. So I didn’t have much hope this buck would still be waiting on me in the median when I returned. 

Getting back and pulling up closer to the scene, I saw a large Fed-Ex 18-wheeler pulled over to the side and the driver standing in the median taking pictures. I thought for sure my deer would be taken from before my very eyes. “Are you gonna take him, or just takin’ pictures?” I asked. He saw the Animal Control decal on the side of the truck and assumed I was the authority sent to remove the carcass. “I’m the one that hit him!” he declared. “I came up through here last night around nine-thirty and he came out of nowhere.  That’s my bumper over there”, he exclaimed pointing about 30 yards down the road. “Knocked his antler clean off and he left a good dent in my grill.” 

Looking closer at the deer, I saw what must have been a head-on collision had indeed broken one antler off his head right at the skull, reducing him to a two-point buck. Searching the median and roadside, the broken antler was nowhere to be found. It was either knocked clear back into the woods, or had been picked up by another motorist who passed by earlier than me.  His missing antler was most likely the reason he wasn’t already carted off in another country boy’s pickup truck. After helping the driver carry his bumper back to his truck, I figured, “Why not?” and with the assistance of the package handler, loaded him up to get a one-antlered display skull. 

After a few months of allowing nature’s taxidermists to clean the skull, I retrieved it from my cache in the woods and began the final cleaning.  I was amazed to see the damage from this head-on collision. The zygomatic arch under the eye on same side as the missing antler was broken in pieces. In fact, the upper and lower jawbones on that side of the skull were completely shattered. He had taken on that entire big rig with the right side of his face! 

As I sat gluing on the back of his skull, which had also been broken off in the impact, I began to contemplate. I fully understand that deer don’t have the full range of thought that we have, but I wondered what he was thinking as the darted across the highway in front of that truck. Was he too sure of himself and his fleet-footed speed? “I can outrun it! It will never catch me!” Was he an overconfident young buck disproportionately proud of new rack? “I can face this thing head on!” Did he lack fear and the realization of just what exactly this semi-truck  could do? “It won’t hurt me.” Or did he simply misjudge the timing and make a foolish mistake? Whatever his reasoning, the consequences were fatal. 

How many of us, with full capacity of thought and judgment, and with a host of examples of the fatal collisions of others before us, still make foolish decisions? How many people’s lives are wrecked by sin as they boast, “It will never catch up to me. I can outrun it. I can take on this thing!” But in the end, there’s the fatal, traumatic impact upon life that always occurs. 
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The crowning majesty of a deer is his rack. This young buck’s glory was broken by a lack of judgment. His skull now hangs in my office. Seeing his clearly lopsided visage, all who enter ask astonished, “What happened to him?” The sole antler sticking out the left side of his now imbalanced looking skull is a testimony to an imbalanced decision. How many people, by lack of proper judgment, end up in traumatic situations? Physical death may not always occur immediately, but the road of sin leads only one place: “In the day thou eastest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)  Even if we are confident that we can outrun it, or proudly think we can face it head on, or poorly judge the outcome, a head-on collision with sin has only one result, and the glory with which God has crowned man is broken, leaving the testimony of wrecked lives evident to all.  So teach me, God, “good judgment and knowledge.” 

​Genesis 2:15 “And the LORD God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”
 
The Hebrew word translated as “keep” has a wide range of meanings. In addition to keep (283 times), it is translated as observe (43 times). Therefore, ‘God put man in the garden to observe it.’ Yet our eyes remain fixed on so many other manmade distractions instead of admiringly observing His wonderful creation.  The Hebrew word is also translated as preserve (21 times). Thus, ‘God put man in the garden to preserve it’.  In the full range of meaning, could we say that man was placed in the garden and has a responsibility as stewards to preserve it? This is supported by the other renderings of the word as watching (7 times) and being a watchman (8 times) over the Earth that He has given to us as stewards. 

“We loiter in winter while it is already spring”. Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
 
Seasons.  They come; they go. Sometimes slowly; sometimes rapidly and unexpected. Some of the leaves have started to turn. I noticed last week a yellowing of the Sweetgum leaves and of the Black Cherry Tree. “All of the sudden” the days have shortened. The morning hours are dark; the evening light wanes more quickly after dinner. Have they days grown shorter “all of a sudden”; or is it gradual? 
 
Life moves in seasons. There are seasons of life we face in the natural come and go. Some bad, some good. But seasons always end.  Be prepared: the good seasons must come to an end. Be encouraged: the bad seasons will end.  Yes, there can be cold snaps in the warm season; but there are also occasional warm  breezes in a cold season. There are bad days in good times; and there are good days in bad times. But do seasons ever abruptly end? No. Sometimes we must bear a long, cold, hard season. Was Jesus abruptly pulled from His season of suffering? No. He endured. But when it turns to the good seasons, we must not dwell on the bad. 
 
God desires to move us from winter where darkness rules the majority of the day-cycle, where we spend what few hours of daylight provided retreating from the chilled wind into our dark … of solitude. Spring isn't just a season. For Thoreau, spring is a state of mind – a Walden state of mind. “We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning, all men's sins are forgiven.” 

Unlike any other planet, our specially designed dwelling place is covered in water. There is water in the seas, water in the oceans, water in lakes and ponds, water underneath the ground, water in the polar ice caps… water is everywhere! In fact, NASA scientists say there are more than 326 million trillion gallons of water covering over 70% of the earth’s surface.

Unless you live in a humid part of the world, you may not realize it, but there is even water in the air. Scientists estimate that on a typical summer afternoon, there are about 50,000 tons of water vapor in the air above a square mile of land. (Although I imagine there are at least several thousand more gallons on a humid rainy night in my home town in Georgia!)
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All of the water on our planet is constantly moving and changing states. As liquid water evaporates from the earth’s surface and becomes a gas, it enters the atmosphere where it eventually condenses and falls back to the earth again. This process is known as the water cycle. It is an incredible design thought of by our creator to keep our planet from drying out. Instead of vaporizing into space, the water returns and waters our planet.

Some of our water gets into the air through vegetation. Not only do plants need and soak up water, but they also release it back into the air; a process called transpiration. God designed plants to water themselves! A field of corn is reported to give off enough water to re-cover its own field eleven inches deep. Self-sustained recyclers!

​Because of the water cycle, we are able to use the water that God originally created over and over again. The raindrops that hit your umbrella last time it rained have existed for thousands of years and have travelled this world over and over in various places. The “rain falls into the rivers, and the rivers flow into the sea, and yet the sea never overflows” because of the way God has designed our incredible planet. 

He was stuck tight in the ring of a chain-link fence. Even with Kevlar-lined leather gloves, I feared a piercing bite from those long, sharp, bark-shredding, rodent incisors. How could I pull this plump Muskrat out of his predicament without getting bit? Although my motive was to free him, there was nothing I could do to convince him that I meant him no harm.
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Liberating this furry reddish-brown muskrat from his plight reminded me of the complexity of sharing the chain-breaking freedom in Jesus Christ. In our love, we wish to free others from the constricting grip of sin. But as we preach the full gospel, which includes not only Christ’s love and redemption, but also the need for repentance of sin, our listeners may misinterpret our motives and aren’t always sure we mean them no harm. Yet freeing others is a calling motivated by love, as is my mission to free this muskrat.

​As rodents go, Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) are bigger than a rat, but smaller than a beaver. With their thick, double-layer of fur, they weigh in at a portly 1 to 4 pounds; just the right size to barely pass through, or, as in this case, get stuck in a chain-link fence! This guy was stuck in a fence surrounding a water retention pond. Preferring to burrow their homes in the banks of ponds and streams, muskrats have taken advantage of these man-made flood controlling constructions. My chubby muskrat must have gotten himself lodged when returning from grazing on the other side of the fence... where the grass is always greener!
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Even we humans, the “crown of creation” and supposed most intelligent creatures can be lured into captivity when we are “drawn away by our own lusts, and enticed” (James 1:14). We too fall captive to “the-grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side” mentality and chase fleeting fantasies into restricted areas that leave us trapped and in a helpless struggle. We inevitably need someone to set us free. 

As I approached to liberate this marooned muskrat, I could see his long, bald, vertically-flattened tail and backside trapped fast in the fence. He had given up on the struggle. Reducing the fence’s grip with the aid of bolt cutters, I was able to pull the exhausted critter free without much of a fight.

My now liberated muskrat didn’t immediately run off in freedom. His long exertion had drained his energy and he retreated briefly to recover under a nearby log. He eventually caught his breath, sensed his freedom, and scurried off towards a patch of concealing leaf litter near the water’s edge.
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While they may not immediately embrace freedom, sharing God’s love and the truth of the freeing power of the blood of Jesus Christ does not return void. It will loosen the blinding grip of sin upon the human heart and free them to make a decision. We may have a sense of frustration when some don’t immediately accept Christ, but we never know what will happen down the road. It is still our calling to preach the liberating gospel. As long as there is life there is a chance to decide for Christ. The fruit of our evangelistic efforts may not be immediate, but we never know what may take place. It was a full 12 months from when I first heard a true evangelistic witness to when I surrendered and received Christ.