God, I'm in awe of you.

I kidnapped my wife Saturday. I came back from surfing and held her up at flowerpoint while she was still in her pjs. She tried to fight back but I jammed the bouquet of flowers in her face and forced her to get ready for an adventure. I guess it was one of those things that you had to witness first hand to really appreciate.

Once she was finally ready to go I drove her to an unknown location. It was a place of extreme beauty know as The Huntington. It was founded in the early 1900s and now has a bunch of gardens representing many different countries and regions of the world. Among them is the Japanese and Chinese gardens, a jungle, Australian garden, desert garden and a Lily pond.

Our goal for the day was to spend the afternoon enjoying God's creation. Armed with only a #2 pencil and a sketch pad we strategically set out to tackle the various gardens. While visiting each garden we picked one plant or animal to draw in our sketch pads. While doing this exercise I came to one very humbling and convicting conclusion.

I don't spend enough time being in awe of God. He is detailed and creative enough to make each one of these plants unique not only to their specific location on the globe, but also within their own species. As I was looking at all this beauty around me I realized that God is so magnificent and powerful that He was never created, instead He has always been there. I was humbled by the mere thought of God creating each color, texture and detail. The color pink didn't exist until God decided that He needed it. Neither did the color green or blue or red.

When I stopped to be in awe of God I realized that He is worthy of my complete and utmost devotion and if what I read about Him in the Bible is true then how I spend my time and energy should also reflect Him. My faith should be stronger than it is, my understanding of His purposes should be deeper and my love for others should be greater. In short, I shouldn't read stories about the early apostles and think that nobody lives like that anymore. I should be looking for ways to live as radical as they did.

As I left The Huntington I felt so small and insignificant. I didn't want to do anything unless it brought glory to the One who created it all. If God is who he says he is then I can't help but point the masses to Him. Others need to know who created the beauty that surrounds them.