All Things

When Alma testified to Korihor that “all things denote there is a God,” he listed a number of things which most of us don’t pay much attention to during a typical day: “the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form” (Alma 30:44).

According to Enoch, God made a similar statement to Father Adam:

All things are created and made to bear record of me,… things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.

Moses 6:63

And Job made a similar declaration to his reproving friends:

Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:

Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.

Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?

In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

Job 12:7-10

All of which has led me to the following thought: How much time am I spending interacting with God’s creations, and how much am I focused exclusively on man-made things?

I wrote a couple of days ago about the importance of perspective in making wise decisions. It occurred to me today that most of God’s creations are outside, and that I may be shielding myself from a vital testimony of Him when I spend too much time indoors.

Warm, dry rooms are comfortable, but they are also limiting. Stepping outside is bound to expand our perspective.

And I unfortunately limit my perspective even further by my daily activities. I spend most of my workday facing a computer screen. When I’m away from that screen, I spend more time than I’d like to admit examining an even smaller screen: 5.2 x 2.5 inches. Talk about an artificially constrained perspective! Our phones can be valuable tools and they provide access to a wealth of information, but they can also distract us from the real world around us.

The first two verses of the hymn “How Great Thou Art” reminds us that interacting with nature brings us closer to God:

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder

consider all the works thy hands hath made,

I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,

thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed;

When through the woods and forest glades I wander,

and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;

when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur

and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze;

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:

How great thou art!

“How Great Thou Art,” Carl Gustav Boberg, translated into English by Stuart K. Hine

Today, I will spend some time with God’s creations. I will step outside of my home and enjoy the beauty of nature. I will look away from screens and interact with the real world. I will remember that all things bear record of God.