when all is said and done

I was thinking about Last Child in the Woods this morning and remembered the song that comes from Psalm 96 "the trees of the field will clap their hands!" Verses 11-13 (NIV) actually read:

"Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.

Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;
they will sing before the LORD, for he comes . . ."

Exciting! but I missed this part that follows:

"he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples in his truth."

Do you recall Romans 8:19-21(NIV)?

"The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." I wonder if that's what Genesis 1:26-28 (NIV) is all about.

God created a wonderful and amazing place, a place where we almost can't help but worship Him, a place that speaks of Him. He made man and stuck him smack dab in the middle of it all, without our technology. You get creative when you're bored. When you get tired of back breaking work that has to be done you start looking for a better way. Maybe God made us that way. But He was probably hoping to meet us in the garden each night.

Ecclesiastes 2 (NIV) . Verses 4-6 specifically tell us that Solomon created gardens and parks among all his other wonderful accomplishments.

Yet after all of Solomon's accomplishments, in his profound wisdom, he adds ( 2:11 )

"when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun."

Every day we live and walk with God. We make choices. We won't all make the same choices because we're each unique. God made us unique with the freedom to make choices within His jurisdiction. We make our choices but there still remains a certain futility about life. Maybe it's a God-shaped space. Maybe it's that walking time at the end of the day.

In Ecclesiastes 12: 9-14 Solomon concludes his thoughts. He says, in the end, the only thing that really matters is to fear God and keep His commandments. Then God, of course, sent Jesus and left His Holy Spirit. Maybe that was His way of helping us reclaim that walking time.

Kids need walking/talking time with God, too.