I am always made glad when I look around and contemplate the handiwork of God. I am impressed with the appropriateness of things—everything just as it should be—everything beautiful in its place and time—everything arranged just right—every provision made for our needs and comfort. I see nothing that I would change if I were going to make a world. This is a wonderful world, a good world. When I think of it, I am not only made glad, I am made to feel that God was infinitely good to make a world like this for our habitation.

Often in the late afternoon I go out and watch the sun set. Seeing the sun sinking behind the horizon, painting the clouds with purple and golden beauty, spreading a radiant glow amidst the twilight shadows, it seems to me that God is reminding us that the sun is still shining, that the night will not blot it out, that it will rise again in the morning. And that reminds me of the line in the song of Zacharias, inspired by the birth of his son John to be the forerunner of Christ: “The Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1: 78-79). A night of spiritual darkness had settled upon the world, and God’s answer to that night was “the Sun of righteousness arising with healing in His wings” (Mal. 4: 2).

When I think of how the world has treated God in the face of all His manifold goodness, I sometimes wonder that He does not blot it out. Martin Luther once said he would do that—that if he were God and the world treated him as it has treated God, he would shatter it into bits. But God’s answer to the world’s mean treatment of Him was Calvary. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. . . God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

I once heard an old minister say, “God is seen in His greatest glory, not as Creator of the sun and moon and stars, but as Seeker after man, the lost crown of His creation.” God’s work of creation should make us glad. But we have greater reason for gladness in His work of redemption.