My Heart Trembled While the Ocean Roared!

"At this also my heart trembles, and leaps from its place." Job 37:1

Haystack Rock, off Cannon Beach, Oregon

Well I'm back from the coast of Oregon. You can't get much more different in scenery than the high desert of Arizona to the rocky coast of the Pacific Northwest! And yet, I looked out over my back porch this morning and was just as awestruck by the tall, majestic mountains of the desert as I was when I caught my first glance of the large stones jutting from the Pacific shoreline, sending sprays of ocean mist into the air.

Looking across the high desert of southern Arizona, where I live

Ah, the majesty and glory of our God's magnificent creation!

I sat for just a while this past weekend on an Adirondack chair facing the ocean while the soft breeze cooled me from a run on the beach. It was mid-afternoon, and families had turned out on this unusually sunny day in Oregon to soak up the warmth and joy of the day on the coast.

I let my pulse return to normal while I studied lovely, young children filling sand buckets with treasures, dogs trotting freely through the shallow tide, couples walking hand in hand, and other runners jogging easily along the spongy, wet shore. I could hear laughter and barking dogs and the sweet squawk of sea gulls and children conspiring. Kites were soaring and water was spraying against the rocks and waves were crashing high in the far distance.

Kim and I hiking along the coast of Oregon.
We had almost a whole free day to explore
and it was gloriously beautiful!

And I thought to myself, this is what God created...beauty and laughter and joy and fun and love. Our world is filled now with trouble and worry and dissonance and angry voices and pain because of sin. But this, this sweet world I viewed from my little perch, this is what God created.

And, oh, He did a mighty fine thing indeed. What a beautiful world He made for us! Praise the Lord! He is good. He is marvelous in all ways. He is an intelligent and masterful and awesome Creator.

And whether you live in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, the high desert, the rolling hills, the deep valley, the plains or somewhere in between...as most of us do...He deserves our praise. For the beauty of the Lord is out there to be beheld.

I encourage you, make every effort you can to venture out into some new and beautiful place this year. See the beauty of His world. Enjoy it. Run through it. Listen to it. Take it in. Breathe it. Sit and stare at it.

Yes, I actually took all of those photos with either my Cannon camera or my Nokia cell phone. I actually saw all of those beautiful sights with my own two eyes. And it was all absolutely breath-taking!!

Where have you been recently that has caused your heart to tremble and leap from its place?