Check out this picture. What do you see?
Consider this a sports-related picture that represents a theological idea about creation. This picture is “fire” as some student-athletes say. Of course, “fire” means good.
Consider that this unassuming “fire” photo depicts at least two seemingly major evidences of God’s good Creation.
#1 – Genesis 1:21 (ESV) – Earth
“So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”
#2 – Genesis 1:26 (ESV) – Humanity
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image (imago Dei), after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
In the picture I see…
- Lake Michigan teeming with life.
- Amazing blue sky with silver clouds.
- 14 image bearers (collegiate teammates) all at varied levels of life competency.
- Sand, dirt, rock – a temporal resting place of the body
Finally, what you don’t see or know is what happens to us a day later while traveling back from WI to MO. After competition and lunch, we start a 10-hour drive home to MO only to get dead-stop stuck in westbound highway traffic for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 10:30 p.m. Whoa!!! Did not see that coming.
A van full of testosterone-driven athletes…at a stand still. What to do?
Well, there is:
- Sending out two guys to determine if we can turn the van around at a crossover just behind us. A few were so sure of the strategy. (“Negative Red Ryder,” says the coach in his own vehicle just ahead.)
- Keeping the van comfortable with the windows down or up as needed until the window switch was no longer an object of play.
- Permitting stealth “potty-breaks” just in front of the van (lights were off). You know a few mischievous ones want to expose the vulnerable “leakers” to all eastbound traffic.
- Acknowledging and assigning blame for each detectable fart. Detection is easy. Denial is pointless.
- Taking a nap. Nope!
- Scheming a stealth surprise on the gals’ van a few vehicles in front of us. Again, “Negative Red Ryder!”
In the end, we survive and arrive home at 3:00 a.m. All image bearers are tired and stinky, but intact, with an odd, quiet sense that the whole three-day adventure actually plays out on the obvious – God’s terra firma – part of God’s good Creation. We are thankful.
Ponder and Press On…