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Nature speaks about God: Jesus in a boat on Greenlake

Lynne Baab • Friday March 30 2018

Nature speaks about God: Jesus in a boat on Greenlake

Greenlake is a little gem of a lake in North Seattle, with a three mile long walking track around it. I lived 16 years of my adult life within a few blocks of Greenlake.

When my kids were young, I tried to walk and pray three times a week at Greenlake. Sometimes my husband, Dave, stayed with the kids and sometimes I hired a teenager babysitter.

I would leave our house and walk the eight blocks to the lake. I entered the lake path right by a patch of cattails where red winged blackbirds liked to hang out, so as I turned to begin walking beside the lake, I would look for birds. After a few steps, the clear water of the lake was on my left, and I imagined Jesus there in a rowboat.

As I walked, I handed things to Jesus in the rowboat: my concerns, my worries, my desires, and the needs of my kids. As I handed Jesus each object, he threw it into the lake. I imagined those thoughts and emotions hitting the water and disappearing, and I felt lighter and freer.

When I reached the south end of the lake, I turned back and continued to imagine Jesus in the boat. Now, as I walked the opposite direction, I pictured him handing me things from his seat in the rowboat on the beautiful lake: peace, joy, and patience.

When I got to the cattails, and Jesus could no longer be there beside me in the boat, I usually felt refreshed and renewed by being in his presence.

In his earthly life, Jesus was outdoors a lot. He spent time on boats on the Sea of Galilee. He walked the hundred miles between Nazareth and Jerusalem many times, crossing the wide plain of the Jezreel Valley and climbing up and down big hills. He went out alone in the mornings to spend time with his Father in prayer.

When Jesus gave me peace, joy, and patience from the boat I imagined on Greenlake, he was speaking to me from a place in nature. Jesus is at home in nature as its creator and as the one who came from heaven to walk our dusty paths.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing posts about how nature speaks to us about God. I want to summarize the patterns I have described. As I’ve written the posts, I have been surprised at the diversity of the messages God has spoken to me through nature:

I invite you to ponder the variety of ways nature has spoken to you. What diverse things does God say to you through nature?

(Next week I’ll write about the ways nature has spoken to me about my experience of the absence of God. Illustration: the walking path at Greenlake right by where I used to turn around. Watercolor by Dave Baab. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column.)



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