Reflections: Seeing God through May and puppies

Isn’t May wonderful!?!

The lovely warm weather; the explosion of green everywhere; the colourful early blooming flowers; asparagus; migrating birds back to nest or just passing through to points north; gardens being planted and starting to grow; hopeful farmers tilling their fields smooth and planting this year’s bumper crop.

And puppies – at least at our house. On April 29 we brought home Izzy, an 8.5-week old golden retriever puppy.  Incredibly cute and fluffy and cuddly don’t begin to describe this miracle of God’s creation. It is impossible to not smile when holding her in your arms or watching her scamper after the grandkids. Even her multiple “accidents” in the house barely dent her immense charm and appeal. We are indeed smitten.

As I have often pondered around new babies, the miracle of new life and cute, vulnerable, infants deepens my assurance that all this – May, puppies, babies, etc. – is not coincidence or accident. For the life of me I cannot understand how anyone can look at these miracles and choose to believe not that they were purposefully created but they just happened.

I had similar thoughts after the death and funeral of my friend’s wife in late April. She was just shy of 65 and had a sudden health crisis which essentially killed her, although they were able to keep her on life support for four days to enable the donation of her organs. Ruth was a wonderful, generous, caring person, loving wife, mother and grandmother. She did much good in life especially caring and nurturing her two sons and four grandkids, not to mention being a friend and support to many others.

The horror of her sudden, unfair, too-early death was certainly tempered by recognition that her life was imbued with meaning and purpose for the wellbeing of others. Ruth’s life and the way she lived it and the gift she was to her family and friends was not coincidence or accident. Ruth, like May and puppies and babies, was a good gift from the God who created the universe. 

I can understand that “who” this Creator God is – whether the God of the Judaeo-Christian scriptures or of some other religion – is debatable. However it seems to me that it takes a ton of faith – even blind faith – to believe that there is no Creator, that all of the amazing goodness we experience in the world and in the people we love is not a deliberate creation by a loving, intelligent Creator. 

I wonder if many of us think about the Creator God as we all thought about our parents as we were growing up. Even into our late teens and early 20s we were so caught up in living our lives and figuring out who we were, that we took our parents entirely for granted, even though they fed, housed, clothed, drove us, etc. 

It is often later in life, especially if we are raising our own kids, that we begin to deeply appreciate who they were and how they loved and cared for us, and we then relish our relationship with them.

It is likewise entirely possible to live one’s life taking for granted all of the beauty, wonder, and goodness of life and creation, while ignoring questions about how this could possibly have come into being or who might have created it. To do so however is to miss out on the best things in life.

The famous Christian writer C.S. Lewis said that all of our most noble human qualities – love, justice, care, altruism, compassion, etc. – are a reflection of the Creator who made us. As my friend and his kids and grandkids were immensely enriched by their wife and mother Ruth’s reflection-of-God qualities, so all of our lives will be immensely enriched as we live in relationship with the Creator God who is perfectly loving, caring, just, and compassionate.

To ignore the God from whom all the goodness of life comes is akin to growing up and living our lives without meaningful relationship with the parents who raised us. When there was abuse in the home that might be an unfortunate necessity, but for most of us it would be an incredible loss of meaning and love.

We all know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”. When it comes to discovering for yourself that God is real, and that He loves and cares for you, I would paraphrase and say “May is worth a thousand words”, “a puppy is worth a thousand words”; “a baby is worth a thousand words”; “a life like Ruth’s is worth a thousand words.”

Be invited as you enjoy the abundant beauty, wonder and goodness of life to look deeper and let those blessings draw you into communion with their source – your Creator God.

Dave Tiessen