Joy in God's Handiwork

Psalm 92:4

Good News Translation (GNT)

⁴ Your mighty deeds, O Lord, make me glad;
    because of what you have done, I sing for joy.

Don and Sarah are visiting from South Africa. We took them out to Joshua Tree National Park one day. We feel especially blest to have one of the larger national parks within a two hour drive of home. We go there often and never tire of it.

Hedgehog Cactus

We started out with a one mile walk along a nature trail in Hidden Valley. The path enters between two great piles of granite boulders. These are placed one on top of another in great piles as though put there by some giant child playing with them as children do with blocks on the playroom floor. Just as on that playroom floor, other blocks lie scattered around as if abandoned when the children tired of playing with them. Again and again Don and Sarah exclaimed over the beauty of the place.

We threaded our way between two massive rock walls standing vertically over a hundred feet high then walked partway up a sloping approach to one of the walls. We stood there grasping our hats as swift gusts of wind whipped around us. Suddenly a very powerful gust knocked us sideways several feet. Both Sylvia and Sarah’s hats flew into the air and then dropped over the side of a 50 foot cliff. Although less than half-way to the top, we decided that this was high enough.

Beavertail Cactus

Back in the valley we found the hats, one on the top of a stunted live oak and the other perched rakishly on the lower edge of the cliff. Sylvia’s jubilant thanks and praise rang out in the still air.

Growing everywhere out of the dry decomposed granite were flowers. Many of the plants bearing these flowers were shriveled by the same wind and desert sun. These, too, we greeted with cries of joy and wonder. That simple mile walk took us two hours just because we stopped so often to examine this or that new beauty.

Indeed, Mighty Creator, you have made us glad all over again because of the beauties you have made even in the desert.