The Naturalist Who Fell to His Knees

In 1831, a young Charles Darwin stepped off the HMS Beagle onto the shores of Brazil and walked into a tropical rainforest for the first time. What he encountered left him nearly speechless. In his journal, he struggled to capture the overwhelming variety of life surrounding him — iridescent beetles, towering ferns, birds whose plumage defied description, fungi in colors he had never imagined. "It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind," he wrote. Even Darwin, who would later wrestle deeply with questions of faith, could not stand before creation's breathtaking diversity without reaching for the language of worship.

The psalmist understood this impulse long before any naturalist sailed the Atlantic. "O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures." Psalm 104 is the prayer of someone who has looked closely at the world — at the sea teeming with innumerable living things, at creatures both small and great — and recognized a wisdom so vast it demands a response. The only fitting answer is the one the psalmist gives: "I will sing to the Lord as long as I live."

Creation is not merely scenery. It is an invitation. Every forest, every ocean depth, every creature we have yet to name calls us to the same ancient response — to lift our voices to the God whose Spirit renews the face of the earth.