PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

April 9, 2025

ALL NATURE TELLS US

Spring came early this year with all of its hope and expectations of the reawaking of nature for a new growing season.  My Scott’s lawn care man came two weeks early to apply my lawn’s first feeding of the year.  The backyard is awash with the colors of blooming flowers, trees and shrubs.

The late Helen Steiner Rice in her poem All Nature Tells Us Nothing Really Ever Dies saw the reawaking of spring as a hint of the Christian hope of resurrection.

Nothing really ever dies

                That is not born anew –

                The MIRACLES of NATURE

                All tell us this is true …

                The flowers sleeping peacefully

                Beneath the Winter’s Snow

                Awaken from their icy grave

                When Spring winds start to blow

                And little brooks and singing streams,

                Icebound beneath the snow,

 Begin to babble merrily

                Beneath the sun’s warm glow …

                And all around on every side

                New Life and Joy appear

                To tell us NOTHING EVER DIES

                And we should have no fear,

                For death is just a detour

                Along Life’s wending way

                That leads GOD’S chosen children

                To a bright and glorious Day

(Somebody Loves You, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976, p. 69)

In his letter to the Romans Paul writes the following.  “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  Ever since the creation of the world (God’s) eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” (Rom. 1:19, 20).

Paul argues that within the design of nature God gives a hint as to His will and purpose.  By a careful and open examination of the natural world one should be able to catch a glimpse of the One who stands behind it.

One of the traditional arguments for the existence of God is the teleological one.  Simply put the best explanation for their being order and design to nature is that there must be a creator God.  By studying the workings of nature one should thus be able to discern something of the one who created it.

What Helen Steiner Rice suggests is hinted in nature that nothing every really dies is confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus the first Easter.  The hope of being reborn following one’s death is not an ideal expectation.  Because Jesus arose from the dead, there is the real possibility that we too can follow in His footsteps if we put our faith and trust in Him.

(This article was originally published April 8, 2012.  Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmai.com.)