Dear Covenant Family:
Sorry this message is late! Cindy and I have been gone for 2 weeks (as you will see in your TGIF message below), and I have had computer issues where I was, so this message is late for that reason. Thanks to Tina for sending last week’s message for me!
Ron
TGIF
Cindy and I are finishing up another 2-week stay on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. As many of you know, this has been a favorite vacation spot of ours for many years now. Our children grew up coming here every year and now our grandchildren look forward to coming here as well, but Cindy and I also enjoy coming here in January when it is peaceful and quiet with few folks around. You may wonder why we continue to enjoy this journey.
Let me begin with God’s gift of the sunrise and sunset. Here we get to enjoy many beautiful sunrises from within our condo (if we are up early enough!). I think my children get tired of the numerous sunrise pictures I send them because they are all so uniquely beautiful, even when there are clouds the majesty and beauty of the sunrise is breathtaking. We can also see sunsets although we have to travel to different spots on the island to see them, and they are just as beautiful and majestic as the sunrises.
Genesis 1:1-5 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
We also love riding our bikes along the beach and inland to observe all of God’s gifts to us there. We love riding the beach and watching the different birds, large and small, either paddling in the ocean water or flying low just over the water and then swooping in when they find their next meal just below the surface. We get to watch the cycle of life continuously on these rides. We also get to enjoy groups of dolphins playing in the ocean and they will definitely sit and play just offshore if there are people close by watching them. We also enjoy when one or a small group of dolphins swim parallel to us when we ride our bikes along the edge of the ocean. They are such a beautiful sight to behold always and to watch them in their own wet playground. We also marvel at seeing a massive alligator sitting on the side of a lake in a residential neighborhood sunning itself on a chilly winter morning, looking like a statue not moving for a long period of time. We also marvel at all the different plants we see in the wilds placed there by God and also in the neighborhoods here placed by man, so colorful and beautiful a landscape created for our pleasure.
Job 12:7-9 – “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
Now it is not necessary for you to come to Hilton Head to enjoy all this majesty that God has created for us. You can enjoy similar pleasures in the mountains, on the plains, during snowstorms (if you are not on the highways!), and in our spectacular national parks where God has created amazing huge multi-colored panoramas for us to observe His greatness and gifts to us. You also don’t have to leave Gainesville to enjoy these beauties. You can observe all these things at Paynes Prairie and on the numerous walking trails that exist in the Gainesville area, maybe even in your own neighborhoods.
Psalm 104:1-5 – Bless the Lord, my soul! Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty, 2 covering Yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain. 3 He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters; he makes the clouds His chariot; he walks on the wings of the wind; 4 he makes the winds His messengers, flaming fire His ministers. 5 He established the earth upon its foundations, so that it will not totter forever and ever.
These are the reasons that Cindy and I never tire of coming to Hilton Head, it is our unique heaven on earth. Others have their heaven on earth in the mountains in the summer or others in the winter ski season, others have their heaven on earth wherever they feel God’s presence with them, maybe even in their own backyard.
Revelation 4:11 – “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Exodus 20:11 – For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
I pray that each of you have your own personal heaven on earth and can enjoy the majesty of the incredible world He has provided for each of us.