After hiking across a dry, dusty desert, Laurice Jennings came to a green oasis. Hidden in the rocks was a spring that watered just about a 20-foot circumference of arid land. The water was sweet and cold.
“It made me think of the living water in the Bible,” he said. Like in Psalm 63:1: You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
As we heard in this week’s message about Elohim, God is Creator; He is over all and He brings order from chaos. For Laurice, an avid outdoors-man, creation is where he most connects with God.
“I'm in awe at the details He puts in creation. He's placed every rock, planted every tree,” he said.
Whether seeing a bald eagle fly over the James River or hiking in the majestic Rocky Mountains or the Swiss Alps, Laurice loves watching nature sing God’s praises.
Even in his work as a builder and landscaper, Laurice spends a lot of time outdoors. Recently, as he worked early one morning, he watched the mist covering a nearby pond slowly lift. The colors of fall reflected in the water.
“It was just magnificent,” he said.
Earlier this year Laurice took his two teenage sons hiking in Utah.
“One minute it’s snowing and then the sun comes out,” he remembered. “When a cloud goes over you, the temperature drops 15 degrees.”
A few years back, Laurice went with Pastor Woody on a canoe trip on the Rio Grande. Laurice prayed at the beginning that God would allow him to see something he had yet to see, a mountain lion. Three days into the trip, they not only saw a mountain lion, but also her cub standing above them on a cliff.
“I knew God gave us that moment,” he said.
Another time, during a mission trip in Nepal, Laurice climbed up a nearby mountain behind his hotel. He could look in one direction and see the awe-inspiring Himalayas. In the other direction was a dark town, where the people primarily worshiped as Hindus and Buddhists.
“I could almost hear God saying, ‘Look how wonderful I am and you don't know Me.’ God shows Himself through creation, but people don't see it. … I'm blown away at the details He puts in nature. When we let go, He wants to be just as involved in our lives as He is in creation.”
