Scene
“Another cold and dreary day,” Tom grumbled, lookeding out of the window. He was unhappy with the world and with life—for no particular reason. He had been locked in his house for the past week. An ice storm had come through, keeping him from leaving home. But today he and his wife, Jane, were going to brave the roads.
“We’re leaving the house for a few hours,” Jane told Snowdrop, the family cat, as husband and wife bundled up in their coats, scarfs, and gloves. “Do you want to go outside for a while?” she asked him. The temperature was frightfully cold. Not even Snowdrop, who always wanted to go outside, wanted to face such a venture. “No way, José,” the cat purred.
Tom and Jane opened the door—the air took their breath away—and they began their journey to town. It was a thirty-minute drive along a ridgeline down into the basin. Tom was annoyed by the long drive, but Jane admired the beautiful country roads. “The roads are not as bad as I expected,” she said as she drove.
Tom would normally flip through the radio dial but not today. Today, he was fixated on the trees. He finally offered, “The day is not as gray as I expected,” his mood slowly beginning to abate. It was cold, but it was blue and bright. As the miles ticked by, he continued to stare at the trees, transfixed. The leaves had fallen months ago; the limbs were bare. But somehow, they looked different today. It was like they glowed with translucence.
“What’s that?” Tom finally asked, curious wonder getting the best of him.
“What’s what?” Jane said.
“The trees,” he answered. “Why do they look like that?”
“What do you mean? You mean the ice?”
“Oh, that’s ice,” Tom said, realization dawning on his mind. “I’ve never seen an ice-covered tree. . . . or, if I have, I don’t remember it.”
He and Jane had moved to their home atop the ridge only within the past year. He had never lived at that elevation. He had grown up in a holler where it was never quite cold enough for the trees to become covered in ice. Tom had seen lots of ice on the road but never on the trees. This was something new, something different. And it wasn’t just one tree; it was hundreds of trees—thousands of trees—for miles and miles.
Tom just stared as Jane slowly made her way along the ridgeline. The piercing sunlight dazzled and sparkled on each ice-encased limb, highlighted by the background of the blue sky. It was like something from a holiday card or a National Geographic special. The scene commanded awe and respect.
Tom suddenly realized he was not mad anymore; he was happy. The beauty of it all enveloped him. His spirit was filled with wonder and thanksgiving. Words could not capture the majesty of the scene; words would cheapen it. The reverence of silence was the best he could offer.
As Tom and Jane drove along the ridge, the scene absorbed them. But then, as they descended into the basin, it melted away. The trees remained, but they lost their translucent glow. However, Tom was changed.
Reflection
Sometimes God reaches out to us through the brilliance and majesty of the day, if only we have the eyes to see it.
Some things, some scenes, command awe and wonder. Some scenes demonstrate to the observer the majesty of the One Who oversees it. The majestic God, the creator and sustainer of the heavens and earth, has placed within the breasts of men and women the knowledge of Him. The apostle Paul explains that God has written His law on peoples’ hearts so that their consciences testify to them about it with their thoughts either accusing or defending them (Romans 2:15).
Alvin Plantinga describes this component of human nature as the sensus divinitatis, or sense of the divine. We may have a sense of the divine when, for example, we look upon an awesome scene in nature, because God has placed it within our hearts. Plantinga writes, “God has created us human beings with a belief-producing process or source of belief, the sensus divinitatis.”[1] He then argues, “A belief is rational if it is produced by cognitive faculties that are functioning properly and successfully aimed at truth.”[2]
However, some challenges arise concerning man’s sense of the divine. First, sin disturbs man’s ability to know and respond rightly to true knowledge. In Paul’s words, people “suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them” (Romans 1:18–19, NASB). God has written His Law on their hearts, making it evident within them but they suppress it in unrighteousness.
Second, the “god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving” (2 Corinthians 4:4) so that they are “darkened in their understanding” (Ephesians 4:18). The powers of spiritual darkness deceive and darken and blind people from the light of Christ that would illuminate their hearts and minds. Plantinga brings these two challenges together, saying, “Original sin involves both intellect and will; it is both cognitive and affective. . . . it carries with it a sort of blindness, a sort of imperceptiveness, dullness, stupidity.”[3]
Yet God shines on man’s darkened mind, revealing true knowledge. Paul explains, “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Plantinga argues that God has so designed the human mind that, despite its impairment, it may respond positively to divine promptings in the right circumstances: “The condition of sin involves damage to the sensus divinitatis, but not obliteration; it remains partially functional in most of us.”[4] Significantly, a positive response is made possible only by the grace of the Holy Spirit.[5]
Beauty is a reminder of the One Who is Beautiful, majesty a reminder of the One Who is Majestic. The good God of heaven and earth multiplies opportunities for people to recognize His existence and splendor. A rolling landscape graced with ice-covered trees and illuminated by piercing sunlight against a blue sky is just such an opportunity.
Such awesome beauty must come from somewhere; it cannot come from nowhere. In the words of Andrew Peterson,
Don’t you want to thank someone?
Don’t you want to thank someone for this?
Don’t you ever wonder why in spite of all that’s wrong here,
There’s still so much that goes right and beauty abounds?[6]
The sublimity and beauty of God’s world engender a spirit of thanksgiving. “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
Sometimes life is bad, and we need to spend time with grief and sadness, which God uses in our sanctification. But sometimes we are in a bad mood for no good reason, and we need to escape the pit of despondency and imbibe a spirit of a thanksgiving. Sometimes, in the coldness and barrenness of winter, we need to be reminded of the warmth and life of God. To be sure, death is a great foe; death is the last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). But the omnipotent and sovereign God of resurrection is so good that He can bring beauty and life and hope from what is otherwise ugly and dead and barren. Thanks be to the God of wonder.
[1] Alvin Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 45.
[2] Ibid., 46.
[3] Ibid., 49.
[4] Ibid., 51.
[5] Ibid., 57–79.
[6] Andrew Peterson, “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone,” Track 10 on Light for a Lost Boy (Centricity, 2012).
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