There’s a sense in which I believe our common evangelical talk about having a personal relationship with the Creator and Sustainer of the universe sometimes makes Him far too small and us too big. We are understandably taken with personal relationships. Most of our time is spent with people or in human settings where everything we are in a relationship with is human or a human artifact: spouses, children, office mates, homes, buildings, cars, phones, iPods, TVs, and so forth. All of these things we can manipulate and manage—and manage them to our own advantage as much as we can. Even the last thing we do at night is manipulate the comfort of our beds and bedrooms in order to get “a good night’s rest”—only to come back to consciousness and start the human relationship thing all over again. Day after day after day with little variation.

That’s why I feel it’s so important to become more intimate with the natural world. While we can manipulate some things there—often negatively—we cannot manage the natural processes: they are under God’s administration. And if we find ourselves uncomfortable with that reality (as probably most of us often are) we really need the wild. We tend to forget that much of our feeling of control is actually an illusion that will fade—especially when we come face to face with our mortality or even threats to our mortality (hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and so forth). We’re neither in control of the natural world nor in the natural world, and that’s why we and our children need to get more in touch with the natural world. We need to experience the wild and get away from human artifacts where we can actually see God in His greatness—not as our pal, but as the Lord of the cosmos.

If the importance I grant the natural world here seems a little radical, do this exercise: read the book of Job. Most of the book is a story about Job and his relationship with his friends. Job has in fact come face to face with his mortality, his children have been tragically killed, and all his money and possessions have become meaningless. And his friends react sort of like people today sitting around in our churches and small groups trying to explain to someone who is suffering how God works and what we are supposed to do to get God to make things all right again—to stop our suffering and perhaps help us recoup our losses. But in the biblical story, God does not make a great benefactor’s appearance, and Job is not relieved of his suffering and loss.

If we were writing the script of this narrative, we’d have God come in on cue, say “amen” to all our wise and helpful advice, and then make things right for Job because he followed his counselors’ formulas for getting what he wanted from God. But that’s not what happened. Instead, God appeared—and rather sternly. God called all their friendly, relational chatter nothing but “words without knowledge.” Then God made clear to Job exactly what it means to understand that both our destiny and our world are in the hands of the Creator and Sustainer of the universe (read chapters 38-42:6). God reviewed for Job not the reason for his suffering, but the evidence that He, God, is beyond our management: In marvelous Hebrew poetry, Job’s Maker highlights the fearful wonders of the creation for the humbled patriarch to be certain that he will never again think he is in control or that his community of friends have God pegged.

If for nothing else, then, we need to experience the natural world to remind us that God is not a friend to be manipulated, but is our Creator: maker of wonders we cannot truly fathom with powers that are beyond our grasp. Simply put, experiencing the wild helps remind us that though He loves and cares for us—Person to person—He is still to be honored as the Lord of the cosmos—of all that is real and significant.

Let’s not forget that the great outdoors is a cathedral—not where nature is worshiped but where we actually join nature “in manifold witness to [His] great mercy and love.” http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/i/gisthyf.htm

See you outdoors,

Dean