Quote:
Originally Posted by violet
I'm still curious how many other Christians find peace in being more natural and close to the nature God created for us~
|
Hi Violet,
I certainly do!
Actually, in a way you could say that my love for nature was one of the tools that the Lord used to bring me to Him. I've always loved nature - being outdoors, marvelling at scenery and sky and plants and animals. Even though I grew up an agnostic, I did always feel quite certain that there was a God - that this all was created by Someone, even though I didn't know anything about Him (and was quite disdainful about Christians!)
After I married, I got involved in some discussions about God with my sister-in-law and her husband. They were (still are) Christians, and I was trying to prove to them that they were wrong. This "inspired" me to sit down and write some notes to myself about what it was that I actually did believe - at a time when I "just happened" to be working alone in a store with almost no customers, so I had plenty of free time and privacy.
Well, in the course of that "discussion" with myself, I remembered lying in my sleeping bag as a kid, staring up into the night sky and trying to grasp the idea that those tiny stars were actually like our own sun, but so far away they looked like little dots of light. I remembered distinctly how uncomfortable it made me to think about the awesome size of the universe, and I realized that this creator God I did believe in had to be even bigger, more awsome, than the universe He made.
And right then the thought came to me, "THAT'S why Jesus! God is so big we can't hope to communicate with or understand Him - so He came in human form so He could communicate with us!"
That day - my birthday, actually! - I became a Christian. The Lord had used my love of - and observation of - His creation in order to talk to me in terms that I could understand.
It was only after years of being a Christian that it occurred to me that the Lord had showed ignorant me that Jesus is the Word of God!
Anyway, I do in fact find peace in being close to nature, and I do try (feebly, I'm afraid) to be environmentally responsible. I know there is a lot more I could do, though!
Jeri Woods