Divine Mirror

“Lift up your eyes on high, And see who has created these things,
Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might And the strength of His power; Not one is missing.”
(Isaiah 40:26)

“Each human self is unique, and also the human species as a whole,”writes Cornelius Plantinga Jr.[i] He continues,

But the same goes for the rest of creation. Hence the distinct “kinds” of plants and animals in Genesis 1, with each species, and each individual within its species, possessing its own integrity. As Alan Lewis notes, human beings have sometimes presumed that the sequence of creation, fall, and redemption is only a human drama. In this way of thinking, nonhuman creation is merely a stage. Animals are only props. The show is about us.[ii]

But the Bible reveals the arrogance of this way of thinking. According to its revelation, “the earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24:1). In Genesis 9 God makes the “rainbow covenant” with Noah, but also with “every living creature.” The biblical drama that starts with creation and ends in shalom includes, at each stage, wolves and lambs and all else that God has made, revealing that God’s providence extends beyond humankind to the whole range of created kinds. In fact, we might think of the created world as a stage not for humans, but for God, who puts on his show in forest, sky, and sea every day.

The result, as John Calvin notes, is that “wherever we cast our gaze” we can spot signs of God’s glory, disclosed in “the whole workmanship of the universe.” God gives off a “general” or universal revelation through creation and providence, and unless we dull our perception of it by sloth or self-interest, the vast system of the universe becomes for us “a sort of mirror in which we can contemplate God, who is otherwise invisible.”[iii]

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells
Each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves – goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
Gerard Manley Hopkins[iv]


“The universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures,
great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God.”
(The Belgic Confessions, Article 2)

What are some “mirrors” in which God has revealed Himself to you (perhaps in nature or in other elements of the universe)?




How has God uniquely created you to worship, praise and live before Him?

“Knowing the plumbing of the universe,
intricate and awe-inspiring though that plumbing might be,
is a far cry from discovering its purpose.”
GERALD L. SCHROEDERThe Science of God

Meditate on the following poem. Allow it to become a prayer that guides you today.

Lord, purge our eyes to seeWithin the seed a tree,
Within the glowing egg a bird,
Within the shroud a butterfly,
Till taught by such, we seeBeyond all creatures Thee
And hearken for Thy tender word
And hear it, “Fear not; it is I.”[v]
Christina Rossetti

[i] Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living, Grand Rapids, 26-27.
[ii] Alan Lewis, Theatre of the Gospel, Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1984, cited in Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 80.
[iii] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960, 1:52 (1.5.1).
[iv] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” in Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopksins, selected and with an intro. And notes by W. H. Gardner, New York: Penguin Books 1953, reprint 1985.
[v] Christina Rossetti, “Lord, purge our eyes to see,” in The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti, vol. 2, ed. R. W. Crump, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986, 210.