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A Whole Good World Outside

Opening our blinds to the prevailing wonder of creation.

Philip Yancey | posted 7/06/2009 10:39AM

I once heard pastor-scholar Eugene Peterson reminisce about an eccentric woman named Sister Lychen. Almost every week, in the church of Peterson's childhood—which encouraged words of prophecy—this ...

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Mali	Posted: July 13, 2009 9:28 AM

I lived in Bucharest, Romania in the mid 1990s. It was, maybe still is, a busy, dirty, polluted (with garbage and noise) city, filled with unfinished and decaying buildings. It was a tough place to live. A friend came to visit once, and as we were driving through the city she said, "look at that beautiful architecture! Look, there and there. This is a beautiful city!" I had never noticed! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but we are too busy to behold God's creation and the creativity He has given others. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of people living in my neighborhood have never noticed the blue jays, cardinals, goldfinches, majestic trees, etc all around us. The beauty of His creation is awe-inspiring and can move us to glorify Him in it. He created it all for us!

j murdock

Posted: July 08, 2009 8:14 PM


I think some of these comments are missing the point. Yancey is looking forward to Jesus coming back. He just doesn't believe we have to live in a bunker until that glorious day. If Jesus is returning, maybe there is something worth coming back to right now.

The personal return of Jesus by John Ritchie

Posted: July 08, 2009 10:48 AM

"The Personal return of the Son of God from Heaven is the hope of the Believer and of the Church. This is the great event to which the Lord Himself has directed the hearts of His people. It was for this that the saints of early days were looking. The Church in her early love and beauty was waiting for her Lord, as the expectant bride with yearning heart, waits for her bridegroom. To see the One who loved her and who was loved by her was her hope. But the mists of traditions soon arose, and "the hope" became obscured. Love waxed cold, and worldliness set in..." http://www.wholesomewords.org/etexts/ritchie/preturn.html

Second advent

Posted: July 08, 2009 10:35 AM

It seems as if the second advent is not preached these days in the barren churches and instead those who pray without ceasing and who prohesy from the scriptures, just as creeds like the Wesminster Confession recognises, are mocked instead of praised. We have entered a battle with the feeble minded and weak-kneed teachers speakers and writers of this age. Our people die for a lack of knowledge. The writers like Yancey are highly learned but soundly uneducated in the scriptures.

We must pray the scriptures and speak them

Posted: July 08, 2009 10:29 AM

The old lady who is mocked was doing a mighty thing, speaking and praying the promises of the scriptures. She would surely have received her reward and Jesus will have come back for her. John 14 (New International Version) 2 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going...28"You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.'. In these dark days people mock without understanding and instead teach an insipid religion. We are in a dire crisis if we reject those who like Anna (Luke 2:36) had never ceased to pray for the first advent. Now the old lady that this article mocks was praying and propesying the second advent just as Jesus had taught it. She would be assured that before she died it would be Jesus who came and fetched her for her glorious death just as she was in part prophesying.

John G.

Posted: July 07, 2009 8:23 PM

It's always interesting to read what others take away from an article. For myself, while I agree with Yancey's main thrust, it was his opening illustration which stuck with me. Churches which "encourage words of prophecy" are subject to well-meaning but vain babblings such as what that woman confidently proclaimed. The issue is not, for me, the woman's celibacy, solitude and holiness, although clearly she was missing out on much which was good in life. The issue is that she only thought that she had a word from the Lord, which she obviously did not. Better to have "the blessed hope" but realize that no one knows the time of the Lord's return.

Anonymous

Posted: July 07, 2009 6:10 PM


Bring back chastity, holiness and devotion to God alone. We cannot build a theology on the prejudices of people who have no experience of the immense inner work and devotion needed for prophesy and holiness in a secular age.

Wooden Cross II

Posted: July 07, 2009 5:53 PM

This article is ofensive to anyone who has their hope in Christ alone and who is blessed with celibacy, solitude and prophecy. Instead of praising holiness it praises the small town gossips and weak insecurities of small boys. We do so live in an effeminate age in which the preachers and teachers and public voices are effeminate. God bless Jesus Christ who is the son of the warrior poet David and in whose heart their was only courage and eternal hope in our powerful and most potent God.

Patrick Gann

Posted: July 07, 2009 4:11 PM

LOL @ "Wooden Cross" --- get over yourself dude. This doesn't sound "new age" in the least (or did you get scared when he referenced John Muir), and it is in no way a Gospel of Sensuality. Believe me when I say there are plenty of people out there who do indeed preach a Gospel of Sensuality, and what we read in this article? This ain't it. I appreciated the article for what it is: a reminder to take in the whole of God's creation, as He is a masterful artist. Indeed, there are times to withdraw and reflect, and good things come of that too. But remembering the "old wooden cross" doesn't require neglecting or forsaking the rest of God's creation.

Barbara R.

Posted: July 07, 2009 12:55 PM


Grace-rilled.

Marianne Miller

Posted: July 07, 2009 8:33 AM


Thank You, Mr. Yancey, for reminding us that just as all truth is God's truth, so all beauty and wonder is God's as well.

Wooden Cross

Posted: July 07, 2009 4:49 AM

Mr Yancey knows how to tickle ears. He comes perilously close to new-age babble in this essay and is at best just confusing. Many of the best Christian minds, nuns and monks and holy seers, in the history of our faith have removed themselves from sensuality and closeted themselves away or have gone and looked for solitude in the desert, so that they can find that inner temple, that inner castle, in which they can commune with Jesus. The art studio that Yancey uses as an example of withdrawal from a violent surrounding world is a prime example of removing yourself from the world in order to find peace and solitude. The result of withdrawing from the world is that you can then be a guide to those who are lost in their sensuality. Mr Yancey must stop his preaching of sensuality and return to the old wooden cross.

JohnH

Posted: July 06, 2009 8:24 PM

It is time to move on from the sterile debate of evolution in biology to recognise that Christians recognize that God Created. Now the debate should be just how did he do it. To impose a strict particular reading on those who are opening their blinds and looking at creation with their God Created minds is a bit difficult when processes are uncovered which tend to upset preconceptions. I feel that the whole debate over the last 40 years has soured our perceptions of creation and at a time where the consequences of too much pollution is becoming obvious, it is time to lift up our heads and enjoy the creation and attempt to be better stewards.

Kim	Posted: July 06, 2009 5:26 PM


As always, thank you, Mr. Yancey. There's not enough room in this box to tell you how observation of my tomato plants served as a Godly metaphor. He's in everything, particularly nature.

Naomi

Posted: July 06, 2009 5:00 PM


Such and inspiring message - Thank God for Philip Yancy.

bill martin

Posted: July 06, 2009 4:38 PM


The t"hings of hearth that grow strangly dim" (in the song) are not the stuff(s) of the natural earth -- they are the social constructions earthlings have made, like wealth, power, class, "race," gender comparative superiorities, ownership, etc.

Elizabeth

Posted: July 06, 2009 2:30 PM

Yes, we need to remember when God created this world, He said it was good! Even a fallen world, like fallen man, still has a reflection of the good God put there to start with. Art, whether visual, literary, musical, should be a reflection and commentary on our world that God gave us, not a distortion that leads us further away from Him. Look at the flowers, a sunset, a mountain, listen to a bird sing, a baby coo and laugh, fill your heart with the joy of the Lord, and then create art.

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