The natural world takes our breath away. The beauty! The wonder! And it’s all fine and good to draw inspiration for living life from nature. But, just like life, nature has its raw, ugly side. It ain’t all rainbows and butterflies, you know … you can DIE out there!
We act all safe and secure in the comfortable, civilized world we’ve created for ourselves. But just turn on the news and you’ll quickly find out that humankind isn’t all that civilized either.
At least when animals eat each other, it’s for a good purpose … to stay alive themselves.
When humans eat each other, it’s usually because they want somebody else’s stuff. After they get it, someone else will eat them for the same reason. Eventually all the stuff gets destroyed or used up. Then we’re just mad, and we still eat each other.
But forget about the global situation. Most of us are simply staying home, minding our own business, working and tending to our own families and affairs. We aren’t bothering anybody, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to go looking for trouble, trouble will seek you out.
From minor annoyances to full blown tragedies, all of us have to deal with the hard parts of life. The troubles we deal with range from the mildly irritating to the things that will take us out. No one is exempt. Nobody will make it out alive.
But there’s hope, which, of course, is the message of Christmas. Ultimately, the war we’re in will be won, and good and right will prevail. But it’s a hope not fully realized as yet. It’s a process that we are walking out daily.
We know that we win in the end, but TODAY we’re dealing with traffic, disease, brokenness, despair, disappointments, depression, uncertainty … things that we’re walking through that weigh us down. Weight that builds and builds until it’s unbearable.
That’s why we need each other.
We might be complaining loudly about the weight we’re carrying, but the folks we encounter may be carrying weights we could not fathom. That’s why we need to learn to walk along side each other with love and humility. We’re all in the same boat.
So we look to the natural world and the animal kingdom to find examples of love and humility … are there any examples in nature of HOPE?
Well … YES! Behold the lowly water bug …
When you have one of those days, weeks, years, when you just feel like life has chewed you up, just know that anything is possible.
That water bug will not live forever. One day the odds will catch up to him and he will succumb, but it wasn’t today! And it’s the same for us … don’t lose hope!
We survived 2023 … 2024, here we come …
That is the song that cones to mind. God is the only HOPE.