Dr. BJ Condrey

Bird Sighting: My family and I were out of town for a few hours yesterday morning. While my wife was with the two older kids, I held little Eden and we went for a walk in a neighborhood. At one moment, I stopped dead in my tracks—we saw a red-headed woodpecker. It was walking a wide branch in a large oak. What struck me was the brightness of its red head. I just stopped and stared. I then realized that there was a man that worked for the city behind me and we started talking about the bird. He said that there was another tree in the neighborhood that was full of them. He said he called it a “peanut” tree. I am not sure what that is. Anyway, we stood until the bird disappeared. The color was so bright, so striking, and so easy to both spot and enjoy from a distance. What a beautiful bird!

What kind of God creates such a bird? I think little splashes of color like this tell us a lot about God. He does not only care about belief. He does not only care about behavior. He does not only care about the church. He is a God who finds great delight in beauty. He is the standard for truth, morality, and beauty! The fact that God would create such a bright display of red on this tiny creature reveals that he cares about beauty. Why? Because he could have created everything black and white. And, to take this a step further, he then created human beings with the physical capacity (the eye, optic nerve, brain, etc.) to behold such beauty.

Oh how nature shows the beauty and glory of God.