Summer Nights

As I am writing this post tonight, I am sitting on our back patio during my favorite time of the summer...the evenings. The temperature is comfortable, neighbors pass by on evening walks, birds play during the final hours of sunlight, lightening bugs wake up from a day of napping, kids can be heard laughing and playing before the sun goes down for the evening, even a few "pre-fourth of July" fireworks are being set off somewhere close by. But, in these moments of bliss, I reflect on life itself. I often find myself thinking thoughts that no one else does, or at least I tend to think that anyways...but isn't this world, this life, this gift amazing? Not only am I sitting on my porch, but I'm breathing in the summer air, I'm thinking of my beautiful wife in the house before me that has a miracle inside of her, I'm listening to sounds taking place on the other side of the block, I get to see the flight of a bird or the adventure of survival of a mosquito as she scouts out my blood lines, I get to feel the shiver of a cool summers night breeze, I get to be in peace without a care in the world in my very own backyard that is buzzing with life that I didn't even knew exsisted. What a painting. What a sculpture. What a Creator. God loves us humans more than any of us may ever know, and it is in these quiet moments that I realize how much God truly loves this world. "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven." Those words comfort me beyond belief because of how true God is to us. This isn't Earth, this isn't Hell, this isn't chaos...this is Heaven. Something so good and perfect lies buried beneath the hate, crime, disease, poverty, injustice, racism, sexism, immorality, greed, sickness, lust, etc. Christ allowed me to live this life and to see its imperfections and to try my very best to reverse the curse, but even Jesus couldn't do that. My only hope is that I will one day wake up with all the answers.