But the Spirit cares about his creation

Isaiah 32:15 … until at last the Spirit is poured out on us from heaven. Then the wilderness will become a fertile field, and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.

Isaiah 34:16 Search the book of the Lord and see what he will do. Not one of these birds and animals will be missing and none will lack a mate, for the Lord has promised this. His Spirit will make it all come true.

When I think of exuberant beauty, I think of the flowers that transformed a rustic camp into a paradise at my daughter Valerie’s wedding.

Interesting—just before I started writing this blog, I read an article about MAID—Medical Assistance in Dying, which is legal in several countries and (so far) eleven states.

The pros and cons of MAID reminded me of Karis’s struggle to understand transplant friends who made that choice, feeling that life is always the correct answer. In her suffering in the last months of her life, though, she re-thought her perspective to the point of feeling compassion and comprehension of why someone would choose when and how to end his or her life. She didn’t do it, but she certainly thought about the joy of being with the Lord, free from all that constrained and hurt her here on Earth. In the months before her death, she wrote often in her journal, “Father, please, please take me Home. I can’t do this anymore.”

I went from there to contemplation of Isaiah’s celebration of LIFE, of both flora and fauna, mediated by the Holy Spirit, and the blessing to people of flourishing, fertile fields and animals. (Even the deer, groundhogs, turkeys, and bunnies that plague my efforts at gardening, Lord?)

I’m writing a book with a double setting: Bethlehem/Jerusalem and Heaven. The Heaven of my imagination overflows with vibrant life of every kind and natural beauty that is the “real thing,” only reflected in the mountains and valleys, rivers and oceans, gardens and fields of waving grain of our world. In creation, I see how much God cares about the details of texture and color and fragrance, of shape and function, of variety and mystery in our amazing world. How could Heaven not celebrate every form of life?

I think that even when, through human negligence and abuse, species become extinct on Earth, hurting their Creator’s heart, they are preserved in Heaven. How else could Isaiah’s promise be fulfilled, that not one will be missing?

I invite you to read aloud Isaiah 35. Yes, the whole thing, all eleven verses. Because our Lord is the Author of life, in all its forms. And that includes our own hearts and imaginations.

Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and the redeemed will be filled with joy and gladness (Isaiah 35:11).

A 3000-piece puzzle called Life that our daughter Karis put together, framed, and hung. I’m trying to find out the name of the artist.