Spring has to be one of the most glorious things God ever made. This weekend I rode through western Tennessee with my parents in their Ford Crown Vic, or what their grandchildren call the classic old person’s car. We observed how pretty the countryside was, how nice the yards appeared, and how this seemed to be such an idyllic area. Well, my parents never use the term idyllic, but you get what I am saying.
“Of course all the homes look pretty with their yards all green,” I observed in one of my great Captain Obvious moments. “It is springtime. Everything looks good in springtime.”
This statement I take to be almost axiomatic. Other than the fact that our mild winter seems not to ever want to end and temps continue to plunge into frigid digits this late in the year, everything is beautiful, just like the old Ray Stevens song declared.
But there is more to it than this. Studies show taking time to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors in times like the spring actually make an impact on our lives. One 1984 University of Delaware study placed patients recovering from gall bladder surgery in two types of rooms: some had a view of a green field, the others of a brick wall. Those gazing at the field recovered faster.
If I were in the group staring at the brick wall I would want a refund from that hospital.
A 2010 study in Japan studied 280 people to take strolls in the park and in the city. The walks in the park among trees and vegetation showed lower blood pressure, pulse rates, and stress levels.
We could all use less stress levels.
I think there is yet a more vital, theological role in all this. There is a reason when we want to get away — like Southwest Airlines asks in their interrogative advertisements — we prefer getting to the beach, the mountains, or the woods. God created us and put us in His wonderful, awe-inspiring creation, and their is something about being in the natural world that brings a sense of awe and spiritual proximity to our Creator.
In his City of God Augustine observed:
“Some people, in order to discover God, read books.
But there is a great book:
the very appearance of created things.
Look above you! Look below you!
Note it. Read it.
God, whom you want to discover,
never wrote that book with ink.
Instead He set before your eyes
the things that He had made.
Can you ask for a louder voice than that?
Why, heaven and earth shout to you:
‘God made me!’”
Aquinas argued we have two sacred texts, the Bible and God’s Creation.
Luther observed: ”God’s entire divine nature is wholly and entirely in all creatures, more deeply, more inwardly, more present than the creature is to itself.” He added, “Animals are footprints of God.” He saw the importance of Creation:
“God writes the Gospel,
not in the Bible alone,
but also on trees,
and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”
Neither my point nor Luther’s is to say we have all we need to know God in Creation. No, we must have the written Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, as Paul clearly stated in Romans. But Paul also said in Creation we see His invisible attributes (Romans 1:20).

Here is my simple point: get out. Get out of the house, away from the apartment, push away from your desk. Take a walk in the park. Sit outside and watch the birds. Observe the wonder and harmony and beauty of God’s world. It is His, you know. But it is also for us to enjoy.
I am discovering how obsessed I can become with “changing the world” and “making an impact” and “reaching the nations,” all which matter and all which I believe in. But I am also realizing how much I need to stop obsessing, go lay in a hammock or fill up a bird feeder, or just pet our cat’s neck. Jonathan Edwards spent huge amounts of time in creation soaking up the wonder of God. And he led a great awakening. Maybe we can find our souls restored and our ministries better formed by spending a bit more time observing God’s presence all around us in the world He made.
Try making time in creation a regular part of your life for just a month and see if your perspective is not changed just a bit.
And, spending time there may help you change the world as well.
(note: I got the info on gall bladders and the Japanese study from A.J. Jacobs’ hilarious new book Drop Dead Healthy).