This is the second installment in our series entitled, God and Nature, which explores the relationship between our Creator and nature: how God uses nature, how we are meant to view nature, and how God chooses to reveal (or hide) himself in nature.
I've always been an outdoorsy kind of guy. From an early age, whenever I could go to the mountains or the sea or indulge in some activity in nature, I would. I hike, trail run, swim in the open water of lakes and oceans, kayak, stand-up paddle board, rock climb, and mountain bike. I've even been known to skateboard, mountainboard, and surf every now and then, too. Lately, I've even been hunting - but not fishing. I am a terrible fisherman. Accordingly, I have lived in the mountains whenever possible and raised my children (and now grandchildren) to love and appreciate God's natural gifts.
I'll be one of the first to assert that nature is good. But sometimes, if we aren't careful, this good gift can become conflated with God himself and lead to the misconception that God is nature and nature is God. Nature is easy to idolize as a god.
This idea often rears its head in the way people speak about nature:
"I don't need to go to church because I find God in nature," or
"Nature is where I go to experience the divine," or even
"All I need to do to see God is look at the mountains or watch a sunrise."
All these sentiments are well-meaning but misplaced. It is understandable to be so moved by an Arizona sunset that you feel the need to react in some way that communicates how deeply you are moved. But saying that you find God in the sunset, mountains, sea, or desert is misguided and ultimately dangerous.
God made the mountains and the sea, the desert and forests, and all the animals and wondrous flora and fauna that inhabit them. He made them. But he is not them. Yet he did make them for you and me to enjoy, take care of, and have dominion or responsibility over:
So, God created mankind in his own image; in the image of God, he created them; male and female, he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Gen. 1:27-28).
Having a sense of awe from nature, the need to be in and around it, and the desire to care for and appreciate it is built into us by God. But he did not say to worship it or to replace worship and praise of him with an appreciation of his creation. In the First Commandment, God tells us specifically that we are to have no other God or gods before him, not even his creation, which he called good.
Don't look for God in the leaves or the trees, but look for him where he has promised to be.
In our sin, we are constantly looking for ways to replace God and the true worship of him with something else. Sometimes, we use the love of another person, or sometimes, we worship the family we have made together with our beloved spouse. These things are also good, and when given to us by God, these roles are meant to be our first vocations: husband or wife, father or mother. Yet we know they are not the thing to be worshiped.
Replacing God and true worship with him is easy to do when we look for God somewhere he has not promised to be. When I was a student, I picked up the phrase, "Don't look for God in the leaves or the trees, but look for him where he has promised to be."
Nature is a wonderful, special, and even glorious manifestation of how much God loves you by giving you first-article gifts (so named after the first article of the Apostles' Creed). First-article gifts are those things God provides for you in this earthly life. This is what Martin Luther encourages us to be thankful for when he reminds us of what we mean when we pray the Fourth Petition of the Lord's Prayer. He says that we are asking for God to take care of us in this life and that:
Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.
But it also holds true that God does not tell us we will find any second-article gifts––repentance, faith, justification, or true worship of him––in nature. Strictly speaking, it is only in the proclaimed Word of life that we find these gifts. This is what Paul means when he writes in Romans 10:17: "So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ." And, in Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And then again, in 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."
In meeting God, where he has promised to meet us, we are gifted true freedom to enjoy first-article gifts for what they are.
For second-article gifts, then, we only meet God where he has promised to meet us: in his proclaimed Word of life. This Word usually – but not always – comes to us from the mouth of a preacher on Sunday morning, in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and in the words of absolution: "I forgive your sins in the name of Jesus." The trick here is that if you want to have these gifts consistently, you cannot replace church on Sunday morning with a mountain bike ride or a glorious surf session. You must find and attend a faithful church. And what is a faithful church? Well, the Augsburg Confession can help us with that one. "The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught, and the Sacraments are rightly administered" (Augsburg Confession).
The good news here is that because of these second-article gifts given to you on account of Christ's death and resurrection, you are free. In meeting God, where he has promised to meet us, we are gifted true freedom to enjoy first-article gifts for what they are. You can enjoy every aspect of God's glorious nature without guilt or remorse. Mountain bike, surf, run, and hike in it. Sit and appreciate it for what it is: good. Just don't worship it or put the gifts of faith in it; these cannot be found there. But as God's greatest creation, enjoy what he has made for you.
