Enjoying the Beauty of Creation

We woke up this morning to a flock of egrets in our backyard and took this picture. If that wasn't enough, we have a lake two blocks south of our house that is the home to thousands of egrets, ducks, and great herons. I was driving around the lake and saw a HUGE turtle basking in the road. He was at least two feet long. I drove home, got the camera, and came back but a taxi driver had stopped and put him back in the water and he was long gone. I am in awe of creation. I am reminded of God's words to Job:

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone-while the morning stars sang together and all the angels ^[a]... "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'? "Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place...Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death ^[b]? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this. "What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years! "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen? "Can you bind the beautiful ^[c] Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons ^[d] or lead out the Bear ^[e] with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's ^[f] dominion over the earth? "Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?Do they report to you, 'Here we are'? Who endowed the heart ^[g] with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind ^[h] "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness? Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear?Do you know the time they give birth? "The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but they cannot compare with the pinions and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on the groundand lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;she cares not that her labor was in vain, for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense...Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom and spread his wings toward the south? Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?

Job's response:

"I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more."...I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?'
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

Job 38:4-42:6

He is God and we are not. Step outside and find the beauty of God's creation even in the most unlikely of places.