Blue for the Sky and the Color Green

Last night we began a core class called Meeting with God and something that we talked about was “general revelation.” Here’s what that means: The way in which God reveals Himself to all people through creation and human nature.

If you’re tempted to stop reading at this point because, you know, dryness, this illustration might help. 

Maybe you’ve heard the watchmaker illustration before? It goes like this:

Say you find a Rolex on the sidewalk. Finding the watch indicates the presence of a watchmaker. Or if you see a sleek Mercedes driving down the road, you can logically deduce that there was not an explosion in the junkyard that created that beautiful piece of German engineering. General revelation helps us to observe and recognize that all of the beauty of creation and humanity could not have come into being without a Creator.

So for Christians, general revelation will often directs our hearts to worship our Creator God. But to take it a step further, one of the things we also said last night was that general revelation is also a powerful, often forgotten, tool for discipling your kids and grandkids.

God Made the Color Green

I love that old Rich Mullins song called, The Color Green.

Its vintage Rich Mullins - pointing out things we often take for granted and reshaping them into a cause for deep worship. The whole song essentially marvels at how God created something as trivial as the color green. Mullins rocks that hammered dulcimer and sings:

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands

Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land

Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made

Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise

The rolling green fields of the Irish countryside are serenely beautiful. The vast, blue expanse of the Pacific has literally taken away my ability to speak. These wonders of creation are indeed the “handiwork” of God’s glory as Psalm 103 declares. And yet, this song reminds us that the greatest of heavenly marvels is that our great God is the One who created the very colors that paint the fields and the sea.

A few weeks ago, my 4 year old and I were out in our backyard enjoying the fierce Houston winter and he asked one of those amazing questions that 4 year olds often ask. Here’s how the conversation went.

He asked, “Dad, why is grass green sometimes but not green now?”

So I tell him, “Well, its this process called photosynthesis where the grass gets green because it creates chlorophyll, more like bore-aphyll, in the spring…”

He didn’t get the Billy Madison reference. One day, one day.

Then he asked another amazing question, “Well why does it do that?

And without thinking, I just said what every Christian parent who can’t remember high school biology says at this point , “Well because God made it that way.”

But then I realized that the Holy Spirit just might be using this indictment of public school education for His purposes. So I continued saying, “In fact bud isn’t it really cool that God created the color green. Like green was God’s idea and we get to enjoy green because God thought it would be a good idea for us to have green. Isn’t God just amazing?”

I see the wheels turning in his 4 year old brain and he’s like, “Yeah, God is amazing.”

And that was it. Boom, discipleship just happened. We didn’t have a worship service at home. It wasn’t stuffy. It wasn’t awkward. It was simply taking the beauty and wonder of general revelation in how God has revealed Himself through creation and directing my kid’s eyes toward it. Let me encourage those who are terrified by the prospect of discipling your kids; you can do this!

An Artist, Not a Policeman

Lately I’ve been convicted that perhaps we’ve forgotten some things in our parenting and grand-parenting. As in, we’ve forgotten that very first line of the Westminster Confession: that the primary directive for human beings is to glorify God and ENJOY Him forever.

And I wonder if the way that way God is taught to kids in more moralistic churches and homes is that He is more policeman to be feared than artist to be enjoyed.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t discipline my kids preacher man?” Not at all! In fact, Proverbs 3:12 reminds us that it is the Lord disciplines him who he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

I’m just saying if all a kid knows of God is that He says, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that. God doesn’t like this. God doesn’t like that. God doesn’t appreciate that. Don’t do that because God will do this,” then it doesn’t take a masters in child psychology to figure out that what they are implicitly learning is not to run toward God but to be absolutely horrified of Him.

Now, compare those italicized “don’t do…” sentences above with these italicized “how much must…” sentences below and think about what this would produce in the imagination of your kids and grandkids:

“How much must God love you that He gave us the color green to enjoy?

“How much must God love you that He gave you Mommy and Daddy or Grandpa and Grandma?”

“How much must God love us that He gave us the moon and the stars to look at in the night sky?”

“How much must God love us that He gave us dinner to eat? That God created tomatoes, herbs, mozzarella cheese, the good olive oil, and 90/10 ground beef? And when you combine them all together, how amazing is spaghetti? Praise His name!

Again, let me encourage you. You can do this!

Some Next Steps

As parents and grandparents, one of our primary tasks that God has given to us in training these little souls to know and love Him is to take seemingly trivial, everyday moments and direct their little imaginations to the wonder, size, power and goodness of God. Consider these next steps this week for using general revelation to disciple your kids.

• Watch the movie Ratatouille with your kids/grandkids:

If you haven’t seen this 2007 Disney/Pixar film, it’s quite good. The main character is a rat who is a great chef. Unsatisfied with the literal garbage his family eats, Remy enjoys the variety, delicious smells and endless combinations of flavors available in human kitchens. He eventually partners up with a clumsy, young chef and together they create wonderful recipes on their way to rebuilding one of France’s great restaurants.

What To Do: After enjoying the movie together, talk about how Remy the Rat talked about the food: the delicious smells, endless combinations and the incredible tastes. Talk with your kids and grandkids about how amazing it is that God created all these wonderful things for us to enjoy. For bonus points, cook them their favorite meal and let them experience the wonder themselves.

• Download a star gazing app and go outside:

Charles Misner was a student of Albert Einstein. He said this about Einstein: “The universe is very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion, although he strikes me as a basically very religious man. He must have looked at what the preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty and wonder than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that religions he’d run across did not have proper respect for the author of the universe.”*

I feel as though so many of us, myself included, need to recapture the wonder for the Author of the Universe by simply looking up at the night sky and allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by it.

What To Do: What better way to direct the hearts of your kids and grandkids to the size and power of God than to get a star gazing app that puts names and locations to what they are looking at? Maybe even go out west and get in the country a little bit and just look at the sky together and just say, “How awesome and how big is God that He made all of this…” There are a ton of star gazing apps available in the App Store or Google Play but check out this CNET article that gives details about what they consider the seven best.

*https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-supremacy-of-god-in-preaching