“Presents Every Day”

I love living in Poway! It’s a great town filled with lots of great and friendly people who don’t mind talking to you or sharing a smile. And the scenery! Wow. Ever since arriving here, I‘ve enjoyed looking out at the peaks and hills, and enjoying so many of Poway’s great parks. No, there is no better place to enjoy life and even more so with the spring season, green hills, snow covered mountaintops nearby and beautiful sunsets that I can now get home in time to watch. What a joy to be able to drive up the mountains anytime I want, and I even get to go to the many beaches in San Diego County. I just need to be more intentional about going. It’s funny how I never think about going until the season changes.

I guess that’s true about a lot of things. We are so surrounded by nature and beauty that we pass it by without giving it the thought and appreciation it really deserves. Each day we are given so many gifts and blessings… A sunrise, a beautiful flower, a small bird, Lady Bugs, and sweet oranges. Whether you believe in God or not, how can you not appreciate what is here all around you? Even so, how much more comforting it is to see things not as some happy accident, but a deliberate, gracious act of a loving, compassionate, powerful God who chooses to give us daily blessings and daily pleasures and daily gifts.

Romans 1:20 tells us “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” (NIV) I’m not here to convince you of the truth of Scripture and creation over the “Theory of Evolution”, although as a former physicist, I can assure you that my faith is not “blind”. What I do want to tell you is that it is so comforting to me to know that God, who is powerful enough to create the world by His Word, can and does care enough about us to give us daily presents, and to remind us of His daily presence.

I’m not ashamed to tell you that I am in awe at the complexity and beauty of the most simple of living things. No, more than that, I am sad for anyone who cannot look at what he sees with wonder in his eyes and in his heart, for how great is it that God who has the power and desire to do these great things, chooses also to do so many wonderful and simple things for me as well. What can He not do for me? For you? I have a great God. How great is yours? Let me introduce you to mine.

Rev. Bill Baker