Message from Jim Wolfe, High School Teacher

In preparing for this devotional I happened to remember when I was a teen the times sitting out on the large porch of my aunts country home when we visited in the summer. Most of the time there would be several of us kids out playing and the adults solving all the problems of the world on that porch. Sometimes when I was alone, just sitting there by myself, I could hear and see the glory of God’s nature in the fields and woods around their house. As I think of today’s times, it seems that everyone is so "busy" these days. Long gone are the days when we sat on the porch during the setting sun, listening to the sounds of nature, and solving all the problems of the world.

Some people might thing we are better off now than we were then. I don't know. We seem to have lost the ability to appreciate nature, which is sometimes tough to do in the city.

The following is a poem I came across on the internet that sort of follows this theme. Appreciate what God has given us while we can! It is titled “The Music of Nature”

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.

The music won't last.
Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask "How are you?"
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done,
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.

The music won't last.
Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die

'Cause you never had time
To call and say "Hi"?

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music my friends
Before the song is over.