Lynne Baab

Creative prayer: trees

Friday July 19 2019

I was 15 the first time I saw a tree as a thing of beauty. Three trees, to be precise. We had just moved from Virginia to Tacoma, Washington, and our new house had three young birch trees in the back yard, planted close to each other. When the wind blew, they looked like three beautiful girls dancing. My heart always lifted when the wind tossed them into a dance.

For 17 years of my adult life, we lived in a house near Greenlake in Seattle with a huge Western red cedar in the front yard. I can’t tell you how many times I sat in the living room, gazing into the branches of that tree, awed by its size and beauty.

For 12 years we lived in Lake City, also in Seattle, with a tall hawthorn tree next to our deck. When it was covered with white flowers in the spring, I smiled. And for our ten years in Dunedin, New Zealand, our living room windows looked onto a rata tree, a non-deciduous tree with dark green leaves, where a European blackbird roosted each spring. Those leaves were a delight all year long.

Trees are a powerful metaphor in the Bible. For example, Psalm 1 compares people who loves God’s law to

“trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.” (Psalm 1:3)

Comparing our lives, and the lives of those we love, to the four characteristics of a flourishing tree described in the psalm can draw us into some lovely creative prayer.

1. Praying for our placement by streams of water. In what places and circumstances do you feel connected to the streams of water that nourish you spiritually, physically, emotionally and relationally? While reading or pondering a passage in the Bible? While praying with a family member or friend or small group? While singing in church or playing a musical instrument or listening to a CD of praise music? While eating in a leisurely setting with loved ones? Perhaps in nature, gardening or walking or sailing or biking?

We can pray for ourselves and for the people on our minds that all of us will find streams of living water and make choices to spend time there. This opens up prayers for discernment, for our schedules, for self-discipline and for the sheer joy of experiencing God’s life-giving water in daily life.

2. Praying for fruit bearing. Do you ever look at your life and pay attention to the fruit you are bearing? I like to imagine a small vineyard beside an orchard full of a variety of fruit trees. Then I imagine myself standing with Jesus looking at the fruit my life has borne. I ask Jesus to help me see the fruit that pleases him, and I thank him for the privilege and joy of bearing fruit. I ask him to help me make choices every day that increase good fruit in my life.

We can pray for fruitbearing in our own lives and in the lives of friends and family members. This is also a great thing to pray for leaders in all settings of life.

3. Praying that our leaves will not wither. These are prayers for the kind of perseverance that comes from keeping our roots firmly planted in the streams of living water. These prayers focus on the ability to keep on loving, serving, and working hard. And these prayers must also focus on the kind of rest and renewal that enable us to maintain green leaves. Just like the rata tree in our yard in New Zealand, God wants us – and those for whom we pray – to have green leaves in all seasons.

4. Prayers for prospering. Here’s an opportunity for a variety of prayers for ourselves and others. We might pray for financial prospering, or for ourselves or others who struggle to prosper in their work or ministry. We might pray for prospering relationally, for relationships with friends, family, neighbors and colleagues.

Two other scriptures inform my prayers using trees as a metaphor. The oaks of righteousness in Isaiah 61:3 display God’s glory. I love to ponder what being an oak of righteousness looks like for me. And the Apostle Paul, in Ephesians 3, prays that the Ephesians would be “rooted and grounded in love” (verse 17). His whole prayer in Eph 3:14-19 focuses on love, and I find it helpful to pray for the ways I desire to be rooted in love, like a tree rooted in healthy, well watered soil, and for the ways I desire that rooting for the people I pray for.

Next week: creative prayer as affirming truth. Illustration: Dave Baab’s interpretation of the tree in Psalm 1.

A favor: I wonder if any of my blog readers have read my book A Renewed Spirituality: Finding Fresh Paths at Midlife. I’d like to have more reviews of the book on amazon.com, and I would really appreciate it if some of you could post a few sentences about the book. (You have to have an amazon account to post reviews. Here’s where to post the review.) If you read the book in the past, and need a reminder of the content, the amazon page has a good overview of the content. I have excerpted several chapters of the book on this blog. Here are the first posts of those excerpted chapters:

• Drawing near to God with the heart
• Worshipping God the Creator
• Benedictine spirituality
• Celtic spirituality

Thanks for your help!

Creative prayer for creation care

Thursday March 7 2019

What’s your favorite place in nature? A beach, the mountains, a lake, a meadow? What’s your favorite aspect of nature? Flowers, reflective water, a specific kind of animal, a tree?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how we can pray more deeply for God’s creation and how we can feel like we are walking with Jesus when we care for creation. I’ll give you some ideas here, and you can see more of them in the Lenten devotional I co-wrote for our church this year.

Gratitude and praise. Thankfulness prayers are deeply appropriate – and even foundational – when we pray about God’s creation. We don’t have to look very far to find things to praise and thank God for when we look at the beauty of flowers, trees, hills, mountains, lakes, oceans, clouds, and thousands of other manifestations of God’s creativity and beauty.

Lament. We also don’t have to look very far in God’s creation to feel upset about damage to the beauty of the world God created so intricately and carefully. Lament prayers express sadness, grief, anger and frustration. We tell God what we’re upset about. Lament prayers are appropriate in so many areas when we see or think about environmental degredation. 

Confession and assurance of pardon. If you’re like me, and you feel guilt about not engaging in creation care as much as you’d like to, or as much as you’ve felt led to, God invites you to bring those thoughts and feelings into a prayer of confession. God always forgives us and gives us a fresh start.

Intercession. Prayers of intercession for creation are appropriate in many areas. So many people are involved in aspects of caring for God’s creation. So many people create policy that impacts the earth. Where can we start in our prayers?

I’d suggest picking something you love in nature, and think about all the scientists who do research in that area, all the people who are involved in taking care of that part of God’s creation, all the policy makers who make decisions that have an impact on that part of nature, and all the ordinary people whose decisions have an effect on that part of nature you love. Pray for those people and for God’s continued sustenance and care of the beautiful earth.

To deepen prayers for creation care, I suggest reading Psalm 103 and 104, and then praying the words to both psalms. They can be read as a pair, each reflecting one of God’s major roles in human history.

Psalm 103 focuses on God the Redeemer, and if you confess your sins about anything, including not caring for creation as well as you should, you’ll find joy and assurance from God in the words of Psalm 103. If you read it, notice how many nature analogies are used to make the points in the psalm.

Psalm 104 focuses on the way that God sustains the plants and animals. And humans! I find it delightful.

At my church this year, we are focusing on creation care as a hopeful Lenten practice. A friend, Janette Plunkett, and I wrote a devotional for Lent that provides lots of suggestions for each week of Lent. Each week focuses on a different aspect of creation care, such as food, home energy, and transportation. Each week includes suggestions for experiencing God’s companionship with us in the area of creation care, as well as scriptures, ideas for prayer, poetry, songs, quotations, activities for families, and ways to learn more about the topic of the week. Each lesson is illustrated with my husband Dave’s beautiful paintings. It’s an online devotional, available here.

Whether or not you use the devotional, give some thought to how you might pray with joy and hope about the ways humans care for the beautiful earth God entrusted to our care.

(Next week: mnemonic devices in prayer. Illustration by Dave Baab. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column of the whole webpage.)

If you’d like a more traditional Lenten devotional, consider the one I wrote that has one psalm for each day of Lent, illustrated by Dave’s paintings. It’s available here.

Nature speaks about God: The Bible and nature

Friday May 4 2018

In our Seattle church, children bring flowers on Easter Sunday, mostly daffodils and tulips, with a few hot house flowers like carnations thrown in. The flowers are inserted in a cross specially designed for Easter. At my friend’s church in Oamaru, New Zealand, children also bring flowers on Easter to place on a cross. Because Easter is in the late summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the flowers are mostly roses and dahlias.

Different flowers, different seasons, different locations. Same God, same Easter, same celebration of Jesus’ triumph over death.

The cross speaks of Good Friday, Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and God’s great redemption of the world through Jesus’ obedience and love. The flowers speak of seasonal beauty. In the Northern Hemisphere, the daffodils speak of new life in the spring. In the Southern Hemisphere, the late summer flowers speak of abundance and rich fullness of life.

These flower crosses are a good illustration of a profound truth. God reveals God’s nature and character to us in two major ways: through the wonder of the created world and through the Holy Scriptures of the New and Old Testament.

Nature speaks of her Creator. I’ve been writing weekly posts for more than two months about how God has spoken to me through nature, and you can see a list of all those posts below.

The Bible also speaks about who God is and what God does. God's speech through the Bible is very focused and specific. Through the Bible, we learn the story God’s work through the nation of Israel. We learn about God’s law, the prophets who spoke of God’s truth, and the kings who led God’s people. Through the Bible we learn about Jesus’ coming to earth, his death on the cross, his glorious resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Without the Bible, the voice of nature is pretty general, diffuse and vague.

Theologians have a name for these two kinds of revelation about God. “General revelation” refers to God’s revelation through nature. “Special revelation” refers to God’s specific and particular revelation through the Bible.

These two kinds of revelation are visible in Psalm 19, vividly portrayed in The Message translation:

 God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
    God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
    Professor Night lectures each evening.
Their words aren’t heard,
    their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth:
    unspoken truth is spoken everywhere. . . .

The revelation of Godis whole
    and pulls our lives together.
The signposts of Godare clear
    and point out the right road.
The life-maps of Godare right,
    showing the way to joy.
The directions of Godare plain
    and easy on the eyes.
God’s reputation is twenty-four-carat gold,
    with a lifetime guarantee.
The decisions of God are accurate
    down to the nth degree.
God’s Word is better than a diamond,
    better than a diamond set between emeralds.
You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring,
    better than red, ripe strawberries.
There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger
    and directs us to hidden treasure.
Otherwise how will we find our way? —Psalm 19:1-4, 7-11, The Message

In one of my earlier posts, I wrote about how my perception of God’s voice through nature changed after I became a Christian. My knowledge of God through the Bible shaped the way I heard God speak through nature.

As this series comes to an end, I encourage you to continue to ponder the voice of God through nature. Compare and contrast what you “hear” about God’s character and actions in nature and in the Bible. What do you hear about who God is? How God views you? How you are called to respond today?

(Next week: An AHA moment on Mother’s Day. Illustration: An Easter flower cross in Oamaru, New Zealand, on the left and an Easter cross in Seattle on the right. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column.)

This is the tenth and final post in a series on the ways God speaks through nature. Previous posts:

The first time nature to spoke to me about God         
Mountains and clouds on Easter               
Algae and stars       
Tropical fish in the Red Sea         
Jesus in a boat on Greenlake         
The feeling of God’s absence         
Familiar and unfamiliar landscapes        
The miracle of trees        
Patterns in God's speech

Nature speaks about God: Patterns in God’s speech

Friday April 27 2018

When we think about the ways God speaks through nature, a key passage is Psalm 119:1-4:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
   and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
   and their words to the end of the world.”

The first verse tells us the content of the words: the glory of God. The remaining verses describe the nature of the speech. It goes spreads to the end of the earth, speaking without words or audible voice.

What do the speechless words say? That God has glory? Anything else about God’s glory?

Romans 1:19-21 is the second key passage related to this topic. “Them” in the passage refers to “those who by their wickedness suppress the truth” (verse 18).

 “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.”

So the heavens (from Psalm 19:1) and all things God has made (Romans 1:20), speak of God’s eternal power and divine nature. The Romans passage makes clear that these attributes of God are invisible, yet they become visible in the things God has made. What is the appropriate response to what is revealed through the creation? Honoring God as God and giving thanks to God (Romans 1:21).

I’ve been writing about the ways God has spoken to me through nature, giving examples in the eight previous posts in this series. I started the series because I wanted to explore some specific memories of God speaking to me through nature. What I’ve learned from writing these posts has been quite surprising. I’ve been surprised by

1. How clear it is that before I was a Christian, God’s voice through nature was quite diffuse and general. “There’s something more than this physical word,” Mount Rainier seemed to say to me when I was 15.

2. How God’s voice through nature became so much more focused after I became a Christian and was reading the Bible regularly. My first Easter Sunday as a Christian, the clouds moving up a mountainside spoke to me of God’s resurrection and God’s upward call to us in Christ.

3. How God’s voice to me through nature is often quite metaphorical. Those clouds floating upward functioned as metaphors for the resurrection. Mount Rainier’s disappearance into clouds is a metaphor for the feeling of God’s absence even though I know God is still there. The three birch trees in my back yard that looked like young girls dancing were a metaphor for our joy in God’s presence.

4. How nature helps me imagine Jesus as a man who spent a lot of time outdoors. I wrote about my practice for many years of imagining Jesus in a boat on Greenlake, and I handed him my sorrows and fears. This picture of “Outdoor Jesus,” who enjoyed nature and who spent time with his Father outdoors in the early morning, is something I’d never thought about before.

I invite you this week to ponder the speech of God through nature to you. What new things does that speech reveal to you about God?

(Next week: harmonizing God’s voice through nature and the Bible. Illustration by Dave Baab. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column.)

This is the ninth post in a series on the ways God speaks through nature. Previous posts:

The first time nature to spoke to me about God         
Mountains and clouds on Easter               
Algae and stars       
Tropical fish in the Red Sea         
Jesus in a boat on Greenlake         
The feeling of God’s absence         
Familiar and unfamiliar landscapes        
The miracle of trees          

Nature speaks about God: The miracle of trees

Thursday April 19 2018

I have always loved trees. They speak to me of God’s creativity, complexity, beauty and provision.

In high school, we had three young birch trees in our back yard. To me, they looked like young girls dancing, reflecting the joy of living in God’s beautiful world.

As a university student, I took hundreds of photos of the sun shining through trees. I particularly admired the translucence of maple leaves backlit by the sun, speaking to me of the beauty of the Light of the World.

I often remember the trees from places I’ve traveled. The first time I travelled to New Mexico and Colorado in the fall, the round, golden aspen leaves made me gasp with pleasure. The trees looked like they were covered with gold coins, a picture of God’s rich beauty and abundance.

The eucalyptus trees in Australia were a revelation. I had always loved the smell of eucalyptus trees when I visited Northern California, but I thought “eucalyptus” referred to one kind of tree. In Australia, dozens of species of eucalyptus fill the streets and parks, each species with a slightly different color or shape. Of the 700 species of eucalyptus in the world, most are native to Australia. Seeing all those different kinds of eucalyptus trees made me feel like a kid in a candy shop of trees, all of them intricately created by the Maker of all beauty.

Trees are used throughout the Bible as metaphors for various aspects of faith. The tree planted by streams of water in Psalm 1 bears fruit in its season and has green leaves even in a drought. Who is like that tree? A person who loves God, does what is right, and meditates on God’s law day and night.

The vision of God’s abundance described in Isaiah 55:12 talks about joy and peace, which will be so powerful that the mountains will sing and “all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” I read that verse for the first time as a very young Christian, during my photographing-trees-in-the-sun phase, and I posted the verse on my bulletin board because it was so vivid and joyous.

In John’s vision of heaven, recounted in Revelation 21 and 22, the river of life flows through the city, with the tree of life growing beside it, “and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2). The nations so desperately need God’s healing, and I wonder if those healing leaves will perhaps look like golden aspen leaves or like maple leaves with the sun shining through them.

Trees take simple ingredients from the air and soil – carbon dioxide, water, and minerals – and turn them into sturdy branches, shimmering leaves, delicious fruit, and precious oxygen. Because humans and other mammals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, trees give balance, providing the oxygen that is essential for human life. Without trees, the rising carbon dioxide level of the air would make life impossible for two reasons: lack of oxygen for mammals to breathe and ever increasing temperatures caused by carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect.

Arbor Day focuses on planting trees, these miracles of beauty and oxygen. The first known Arbor Day was celebrated in 1594 in Spain. The United States celebrates Arbor Day on April 27, and many other countries have their own Arbor Day.

Between now and Arbor Day, look out your window or go outside and enjoy the trees that you can see. Plant a tree. Draw a tree. Photograph a tree. And don’t forget to thank God for trees.

For further reflection:

The Arbor Day Foundation provides a wonderful webpage showing the benefits of trees. Take a look here.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How they Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben will blow your mind. Did you ever think that trees communicate with each other? They do it through chemicals they release into the wind and through fungi and other plants in the earth.

(Next week: patterns in the way God speaks to us. Illustration: eucalyptus trees in Field National Park, Tasmania, Australia,  watercolor by Dave Baab. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “subscribe” in the right hand column.)

This is the eighth post in a series on the ways God speaks through nature. Previous posts:

The first time nature to spoke to me about God         
Mountains and clouds on Easter               
Algae and stars       
Tropical fish in the Red Sea         
Jesus in a boat on Greenlake         
The feeling of God’s absence         
Familiar and unfamiliar landscapes