Show not tell

As an author, I am constantly encouraged in my writing to ‘show not tell’.  This means that it is not enough to say ‘The sunset was beautiful.’ Far better to write, ‘the sun sank in a magnificent blaze of red, orange, and pink that stretched across the sky, before disappearing below the western horizon, ushering in the night.’

God is the master craftsman of ‘show not tell’. In the book of Genesis, God tells us about creation; what he created, but when we gaze upon the creation, seeing what God has shown us, it makes us exclaim like David,

When I consider your heavens,
   the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,    which you have set in place,

 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8: 3- 4

 Creation, despite man’s terrible plundering, abusing and despoiling of this ‘green and blue planet’,  it is still superb, glorious, stunning. The night sky unspoiled by light pollution has to be the light show to surpass all light shows.  There are times when I am literally speechless at the stunning beauty of majestic mountain ranges or overwhelmed by the chilly splendour of the polar regions in all their breath-taking snowiness or the loveliness of solitary marshland, winding rivers and estuaries.

Surely God shows us his glorious creativity in the sheer variety of birds, fish, reptiles and mammals that inhabit planet Earth. One of the creatures that most amuses me most is an extravagant black and white bug that hovers in the heat of South Africa, all quivering frills and tassels. It never fails to make me laugh. However it is fish that amaze me in their incredible diversity and when we think that most of them were unknown, concealed in the depths of the ocean until the technological advances of 20^th century brought them to our television screens. What an extravagant, magnificent Creator God we have!

However the greatness of Creation is nothing compared to how God has shown his love for us. 

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 8. 

God did not wait for us to get our lives sorted or even turn to him. He initiated the great sacrifice of his life for ours whilst we were still sinners.

God so desired to restore man’s broken relationship with him that he was prepared to go to any lengths necessary.  It was love, incredible love that took Jesus to the cross and love that kept him on the cross.

How did this amazing gift come to us? By grace – the greatest demonstration of God’s love towards sinful man.  Simon Ponsonby writes: ‘Grace – abundant grace – grace is a gift. Grace is not grace if you earned it; a gift is not a gift if you bought it. Grace is not a reward, or a payment, or a due. It is outrageous, undeserved, unmerited, divine favour’.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.  Ephesians 2: 8- 9

We have nothing to bring to God, there is no sacrifice we can offer, no treasure that didn’t first come from him, all he asks of us is our love – that rather poor trickle of affection that draws us into the richest of relationship. In his arms we truly learn how valued, loved, appreciated, adored and precious we are to him.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  1 John 3: 1.

God is showing us the greatest treasure of all – his love. He doesn’t tell us how much he loves us, he shows us through Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, taking our punishment, forgiving our sins and as we surrender our lives to him, he takes us on the greatest adventure of all -  the discovery of our true identity as children of God and the amazing plan and purpose he has for our lives.

Psalm 8

Psalm 8

Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

So God created mankind in his own image,
            in the image of God he created them;
            male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ Genesis 1: 26 - 28

Psalm 8 is one of those wonderful psalms of David which praises the Creator and his wonderful creation. You can imagine David sitting looking up at the starlit Milky Way marvelling at the wonders of the heavens.

Several years ago we went to Namibia and stayed out in the desert in a remote guest house. Electricity was provided by generators so there was little light pollution. We walked a short way up the untarred road by the light of the moon and gazed at the night sky. It was absolutely stunning. Stars hung so brightly that it felt as if you could reach up and pick them. The sky was covered in stars and planets, far more than I had ever seen before even in a dark place in Britain. It was as if the heavens were aglow with tiny lights.

It must have been a night sky of such beauty that David gazed with wonder.  He marvelled that God ordained praise to overthrow every enemy not from the powerful, rich and famous but from infants and children.

As he considered the glories of the heavens he was amazed that God should even remember, let alone honour or even consider puny man. Man is the apex of God’s creation, made in his image and created only a little lower than the heavenly beings, the angels.

In this space age we have some understanding of the heavens that David did not have yet it is this very knowledge that we have acquired that should make us wonder afresh at man’s position in the creative order. As telescopes and space probes reveal ever more amazing sights in the heavens; black holes and star systems, nebula and exploding gases we realise how awesome is this creation and therefore how truly incredible is the Creator.

Yet even more amazingly, God has assigned to man the most wonderful honour of ruling over this breathtaking creation in subordination to God himself. David remembered man’s original call given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  How far short mankind has fallen from this God given mandate.

However the writer of Hebrews in recalling these verses (Hebrews 2: 8 – 9) shows that their ultimate fulfilment came in Jesus Christ and that through him mankind will once again fulfil their destiny.

Next time you have opportunity to gaze at the night sky, marvel again with David at our awesome God and his amazing creation and remember our true calling to rule over this creation with love and compassion and with the wisdom of God not to exploit and manipulate it for our own ends but to steward it for God’s glory.