Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created (Revelation 4:11) -King James Version.

Worthy, O Master! Yes, our God! Take the glory! the honor! the power! You created it all; It was created because you wanted it.  -The Message.

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. –New International Version

One of my fond memories is a trip I took with our youngest son, David, when he was in junior high. We lived in Fullerton CA at the time; so we made a canyon loop that included the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and Kodachrome Basin and Bryce Canyon in Utah.  When we got to Kodachrome Basin and looked on the park event bulletin board we saw that we could take a trail ride with a local wrangler around the shallow, but fascinating, canyon in the morning.  This we did.

The ride became a highlight for us.  It included just Bob, the wrangler, Dave and I, and a small family represented by three generations: grandpa, the parents, and two kids—plus some well-behaved horses.  It turned out that grandpa was a joker, and he enjoyed repartee with Bob, who was doing a great job telling us about the natural history of the place—in particular the strange narrow spires that stood up like ancient, fossilized tree stumps.  They were apparently geyser holes that eventually filled with mineral deposits.  When the surrounding and softer rock and soil eroded away, the geyser “holes” had become tower casts and were now one of the canyon’s great attractions. And grandpa’s joking and continual questioning about these and everything else tested Bob’s knowledge and patience to the max.

Bob was soon commenting on about everything he could.  One feature he pointed out was what he called corral grass: a ring of grass so dense that it kept other plants from encroaching on its enclosed bare circle, which then became the exclusive watershed for each particular clump.  Here grandpa had to quip again: “That’s nice, but what’s it good for?”  Well Bob could not come up with a human utility for it, so he didn’t reply and just directed us on to the next feature.  But I could sense that he was getting his fill of grandpa—as were Dave and I.

Later I thought back on grandpa’s question and its implication.  It was definitely a question engendered by so-called Enlightenment thinking—thinking that even Christians came to adopt especially as the West entered the Industrial Revolution: nature’s value is in what it can practically provide to humankind.  And it’s that thinking that’s done a lot of damage to God’s good creation:  If we don’t see any direct benefit to a natural feature, we don’t value, preserve, and protect it.  That’s one of the reasons we call much of God’s creation “natural resources”: resources for man’s use and profit.  The implication left by that designation is that everything else is pretty much useless.

However, if we consider the King James rendition of Revelation 4:11, the English biblical text used virtually throughout the Industrial Revolution, we learn that the entire creation came about for “God’s pleasure.”  That should have been enough to remind our ancestors that if all created things exist for God’s pleasure, we have no right to heedlessly destroy them.  We don’t know all of God’s purposes; so we shouldn’t assume upon them.  And even more to the point is our knowing that Jesus our Savior is also the Creator who made all things for himself and will reconcile them all to God (Colossians 1:15-20)—even corral grass

Right now in my favorite old orchard goldenrod is gilding the landscape, punctuated by brilliant magenta-stemmed pokeberries, striking red high-bush cranberries, white-eyed osier berries, and several varieties of crabapple.  They’re of no utility to me, but they are pleasing to my eye—and just knowing that they also give pleasure to my Savior-Creator, I take joy in them and in their seasonal glory.  And if I lived in Utah, I’d be finding wonder in corral grass.  “wonder resources” I call them.