You Didn't Create This

A Camping Devotional

When you're camping, you confront the humbling reality that you didn't create most of what sustains you. You didn't create the weather, the landscape, the water, the plants, the wildlife. You didn't engineer the ecosystem that provides oxygen and food. You arrived in a world that was already here, already functioning, already providing.

You're dependent on creation you didn't make and can't control.

This should be humbling. And humbling is good for the soul.

Psalm 100:1-3 says: "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture."

Notice the progression: God made everything. He made us. We are His. We belong to Him. Not the other way around. We don't own anything ultimately. We're stewards of what God created. We're dependent on it. We're part of it.

Acts 17:24-25 says: "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else."

God doesn't need anything from us. We need everything from Him. He gives. We receive. That's the fundamental reality of existence.

Tomorrow's Practice: Tomorrow, identify something in nature around your campsite that you didn't create – a plant, an animal, a view, water. Spend ten minutes observing it and acknowledging: "I didn't make this. I can't control this. I'm dependent on this existing. Thank You, God, for creating this and providing it." Then apply that same awareness to your entire life. Write down: "What am I dependent on that I didn't create?"