Our ancient dogwood tree has just come into flower on this Easter morning. It always did have a fine sense of timing.
We’ve been here 40 years, but the tree was here first. Dogwoods can live up to 80 years, says Mr. Nature; but we don’t know when this tree was planted.
Even more remarkable, on the very same day, our ancient tulip has bloomed. Tulips live for 20 years, sometimes a little more. But this, too, was here when we moved in. It used to burst forth into one spectacular, bright red flower. Now it has four instead of one. We hope the squirrels don’t eat the flowers, as used to be their custom. They left it alone last year.
These (even the squirrels) are God’s handiwork. He imagined them, and then created them. They are here because He put them here. Their beauty is one of His countless gifts to us.
But even more than beauty, the dogwood and the tulip, and all the rest of God’s creation, have something important to tell us: God is nigh. Always.
Astute observations. After I had lived here several years, I was out in a remote part of the yard and came upon a huge barrel cactus, a Ferocactus wislizeni, concealed somewhat by the mesquite trees nearby. There are two huge, flowering barrel cacti in my yard, in in front, the other in a mesquite grove.
It’s quite possible that these cacti are older than I am, or at least close to my age. What change they’ve seen. However, go about thirty miles to the west and there are abundant Saguaro cacti, many of which were alive in the late nineteenth century. Imprrssive to say the least, until you go to the forests of the west coast and see the sequoia, which date back to the second temple period of ancient Israel.
As humans, we have an understandable tendency to see things from our own perspective of time, but our Creator has a much different perspective. Some of the cacti in my yard may have lived through WW II, which places them beyond the limits of my experience. But God has experienced all of time. he was there when it all began and He knows how it will all turn out. Compared to His plans, our existence (in our fallen state) is ephemeral at best, yet He loved us enough to send His son to redeem us.
I love Aslan’s line in : “I call all times soon.”
It’s truly in comprehensible, from a human perspective. We live and survive by the day, but in the overall scheme, this is insignificant.
I got up very early this morning, and this old song was in my head: The Little Brown Church in the Wildwood. Do you remember this one?