As I was looking out on the lake this morning, the complete stillness of the water was dramatically interrupted with a fish leaping out of the water. Probably trying to snatch a bug for breakfast. Not my kind of breakfast, but that’s another story.
What intrigued me most was the line of concentric circles emanating from the center from where the fish broke the surface of the water and returned. The total calm of the water’s surface helped to magnify the effect of the circles slowing moving outward. It was the nature of life that broke through to produce the ring of circles. And ring-by-ring, they each made their way across the surface of the lake in long stretches to impact the immoveable objects each circle of water encountered.
And as each circle of moving water struck the different objects, a returning or reciprocal wave of water moved in the opposite direction back towards the center of the circle where it originated. In essence, it was producing an echo of the energy to return to its creator. I know we’ve all witnessed this phenomenon by hurling small rocks into the water and watching the flow of small waves of water making perfect circles throughout the surface of the body of water. That was always fun to do.
But the event I witnessed this morning seemed a little different. Something made it much more profound compared to seeing this so many other times in my life. For some reason, seeing the circles THIS morning reminded me of God’s gentleness, and His concentric circles of love emanating from Him.
God is the center and source of life, love, light, and truth for the world. Everything that is, comes from His creation, directly or indirectly. As expressed in Genesis 1: 1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.” From His original creation (estimated by scientists to be about 14 billion years ago), through today, God’s universe continues its expansion. But it’s an expansion with purpose.
I believe the universe is expanding in concentric circles of God’s love and light, life and truth that continue on their path according to God’s plan, touching everyone and everything, as it spreads throughout the universe, including the many and personal aspects of the universe in which we all live here on earth.
As God’s life, love, light and truth encounter each of us as it expands into our own personal worlds, as believers, we have the ability to return that love, life, light and truth back to God in our reciprocal responses. Through our praise, worship, prayers, righteous actions, humble adoration, and words of thanksgiving, we bring honor and glory to His name. In doing so, we also set the example for others and become disciples for Jesus to bring the “not yet believers” to learn about God and the love He has for each of us.
I pray that we all can be more observant witnesses to the concentric circles of God’s love, light, life, and truth that not only encircle us, but also provides us a golden opportunity to reflect the love, light, life and truth back to Him through our obedience to His Word.
Live, Learn and Grow in Jesus.
Blessings,
Jerry
