After a road trip
Flowers in the Median & Almost Accidents
We just had a sweet road trip tour through the Midwest to see friends and family. It was wonderful and refreshing. I had two thoughts as I drove some of the 28-hour trip: One, how are there not more accidents on busy, high-speed highways? And two, look at the beauty of the wildflowers in the median- red, blue, and orange flowers grew together like an impressionist painting in the middle of the turnpike. I was struck by both the order and beauty of this broken and sin-sick world, and at how God restrains evil and chaos. What a beautiful common grace to us. This world should be only awful because of sin and its effects, and yet, it’s not.
This is a poetic prayer of praise for the gift of God’s common grace.
Lord, you sustain us.
From chemical reactions in our brains
To the blood pumping through our veins
These miraculous systems are you.
We forget but we are reminded
When hearts stop beating,
Or when lungs stop receiving
The biological message to breathe,
That these everyday bodies
are supernatural events
-Miraculous moments-
happening over and over again.
And then we zoom out to
Interstate highways
Where death traps (cars)
Speed past so fast
That collisions would be catastrophic
And yet, as a whole you protect them.
And in the Highway median,
A bouquet of blues, reds,
And oranges
Blossom without human hands
Planting or cultivating them.
There is order and beauty
In the seasons,
And predictions of the weather.
And even after
terrible natural disasters
People come together
to help, to aid.
Every minute sin and chaos are restrained
You preserve this world you made.
And keep it turning.
When fevers break,
When marriages make it,
When children survive
Falls and stitches and all
The things, and they make it out of
Childhood alive,
When gardens thrive,
When eyes see and noses smell
And mouths taste.
When faces light up
At the sight of another.
When a baby is soothed
At the beating heart of his mother.
When relationships reconcile
And people forgive,
When churches do the good work
laid out for them.
Lord,
You create, and you sustain,
You have made all things
And yet you remain
Not only holding the world
But entering incarnate
To save it.
Lord,
What a common
and uncommon
Grace.
…
“God, Who Sustains”
He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Matthew 5:44, ESV.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.
Psalm 145:8-9, ESV.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Romans 13:1-7, ESV.