I sat on the rock at the edge of the river as the sun was setting to listen to the falls. My intention was to read, perhaps write a bit. I had both my book and notebook in hand and a pen in my backpack. I opened my book. It remained unread. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write.
It somehow seemed disrespectful to have my head down while such beauty existed before me. This beauty deserved my gaze. No half-hearted attention. And so I breathed in the mountain air and the silence around me. Somehow, the distinct smell of the pines, the rush of the water across the rocks, the quaking of the aspens, had found a home inside my heart. It somehow does not feel as though the mountains or the trees tower over me but live with me and I with them. Muir put it this way:
“The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us.”
I agree with him that “In every walk WITH nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” Thus, it was here, the God of the Universe began to speak to my heart.
First, He, the Father, gazes at us in just such awe. He sees me. He sees you. He is “El Roi”-the God who sees. He sees our hearts. He sees our beauty and He loves us. He sees our hearts. He sees our iniquities and He loves us. He sees our ways and counts our steps (Job 31:4). And even when we cast our gaze away from Him, He stands daily at the gate looking for us, ever desirous of restoration and relationship with us, the one He created in His image. As stunning as the wildness of His creation is, we remain His most prized possession.
Secondly, may my gaze be fixed upon Jesus as the author and completer of my faith. May I be in awe of all He is. May I, like the Psalmist, desire to gaze upon His beauty all the days of my life. (Hebrew 12:2; Psalm 27:4). For His light shines not only upon me but is meant to burn IN me. The river flowing from the throne of grace does not flow past me, but through me and takes residence in me so that very river of life flows out of me.
So, as He gazes upon me and I upon Him, may I not consider Him to be a God who is far off, separate from me, but with me and in me, a God who draws near, a God who gives more than I could dare hope or imagine.
The Inkwell Collections 