Waiting on the Lord is like Waiting on a Geyser

Our second week of vacation was spent in the very first National Park, Yellowstone. To be honest with you – none of our family had any real idea how truly wondrous and amazing this area is until we saw it for ourselves!  Diverse, awe-inspiring, strange eco-systems, and sweet wildflowers fill the over 2 millions acres of Yellowstone National Park.

1000 miles of hiking trails, 290 waterfalls, plus all sorts of wildlife bison, elk, eagles, foxes, bears, oh my- Yellowstone has just about everything!  Including a grand canyon- who knew?! Resting on and around the world’s largest caldera (with a super volcano underneath) YNP contains ½ of the world’s thermal features…including mud pots, fumardes, and hot springs such as mammoth, or grand prismatic, or blue star, or geysers such as Old Faithful. 

Our family spent an entire morning hiking all around the board walk which surrounds the great geyser basin.  We were joined by a pack of enthusiastic geyser watchers.  This experience for me was another God-moment during our trip.  I had never been a geyser watcher before.  Did not know anything about these thermal features.  Waiting on geysers (which may or may not spout off on time or late or early or not at all) means you watch and wait with a lack of Kronos timing… more like Kairos timing (or God time).  All that is to say putting aside a watch meant I had time to meditate and ponder!  As we walked, waited, sat and contemplated how geysers work and why they do what they do, another scripture came to me… this one from Revelation, And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new”(Rev 21:5). 

God is making things new with through the bubbling works of these thermal features.  Sometimes I forget that while God created all things in God’s timing of 7 days… that does not mean God’s creating power is inactive or has stopped in 2018. 

Yes, Glacier and Yellowstone both show off the evidence of how God creates with the use of force such as tectonic plates of earth crashing into one another.  Giant sheets of deep dense ice banging around and dragging rock and debri for miles.  Moreover, Yellowstone shows off what kind of debri a super volcano leaves by creating either an another mountain range or swallowing a range of hills into its’ molten lava! 

But sitting there quietly waiting on that board walk- I heard God’s creating power!  These gurgling, bubbling springs with their mineral deposits showed me how our earth is still being shaped… and likewise, so too are we!  Graciously slowly… new things are taking shape at Yellowstone which is why you need to go back for another visit!  At least my family and I do.

God is trustworthy and more reliable than any geyser in YNP (yes, even more reliable than Old Faithful)!  Remember who God is and what our God is called?  God’s name is El hanne’eman which in Hebrew means God is faithful!  Jesus is faithful in shaping and re-creating me every day.  “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!(2 Cor 5:17).  If God is doing new things each and every day in such an ancient and wondrous place- how much more is God’s Spirit doing inside you and your life and in me and mine! 

On a final note about our morning spent geyser watching.  Our tour guide wanted to make sure we enjoyed several of the geysers.  He was especially excited to share with us one called Beehive.  In fact, here is a picture of Old Faithful going off with the indicator of Beehive geyser going off at the same time! And when Beehive finally went off… we spent the next 6 minutes running up and down the boardwalk trying not to get soaked in the ice cold water… because it shoots our boiling but falls back down ice cold.
What a fun surprise to get cooled off and drenched by the ongoing handiwork of God’s creating power!  My prayer is that you too are living into God’s faithfulness as God’s Spirit guides your path and creates newness in your life!