All Creatures Great and Small

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. Revelation 4:11

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. Colossians 1:16

Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. Psalm 119:91

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Phillipians 4:6

For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. 1 Timothy 4:4

All things created by God are good.
All things were created by him and for him.
All things serve him.
In all things offer prayer with thanksgiving.

All things.

I love animals very much. Most animals, anyway. The company of a pet offers a blessed respite from complicated human relationships without retreating to complete solitude. So does the company of God. The latest addition to my personal wildlife reserve was a handful of tadpoles scooped out of a muddy puddle at our Nebraska ranch. Now they reside in a complicated little habitat I built inside a plastic box, and over the past few weeks I've watched with childlike awe as, one by one, their bodies changed and little amphibian arms and legs materialized out of nowhere. Now almost all of them are fully toads, less than half an inch long. They can't live in their little box forever, but I'm afraid to let them go. I'm not sure they'll survive here in a different climate.

Last night, I was up (very) late reading in bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed something dark moving across the floor. Steeling myself to see any number of animals that I don't love so much, including a scorpion, I was instead surprised to see one of my little toads floundering on the carpet. Feeling a real compassion for my miniature pet, I moved quickly to scoop him up and return him to his home. Back in bed, I was anxious about which would be more dangerous -- keeping them captive or releasing them to unknown dangers. So I prayed to my God, asking him to keep them from escaping the rest of the night and to find a safe home for them soon. Then it hit me that in a world tearing itself apart with sin and violence, where human lives are lost senselessly and human souls are lost eternally, I was laying in bed praying for the safety of seven tiny toads. How self-consumed and ignorant of reality! How tiny was the scope of my concern!

But deep inside me, something quelled my harsh rebuke. It told me that if my pets were important enough to cause me worry, then it was important enough to tell God about. It reminded me that God is the God of the small and simple as well as of the great and dramatic, and that by all things and in all things he is honored by his creatures. All of them. I felt that as long as my heart was burdened by the things of God, be it sin or salvation or service or sorrow, then it was okay to care about toads -- because God cares about them.

With my heart at peace, I went to sleep at last.

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.
He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.