To the Haystack and Back
John Fischer

I am spending a “working week” in Cannon Beach, Oregon, one of the best-kept secrets on the “left coast” (as they call it here) of America. I’ve been teaching the Book of James at a Bible College here -- an annual thing for me now over the last seven years. This year I brought Chandler with me and he’s not going to want to leave after having the run of the place and the attention of 120 older brothers and sisters.

The area’s natural signature is a 235-foot mound of rock that juts out of the sand just off the coast, and because of its rounded shape it has been dubbed Haystack Rock. It is a commanding presence -- considered to be the third largest freestanding monolith in the world. Every morning I jog along the wide, flat beach down to Haystack Rock and back. The cold raw wind, the ragged rock and the steady roar of seven rows of breakers that stretch all the way to the windswept foam on the horizon make it hard not to marvel at God’s awesome power and creativity -- that He made and maintains such beauty like this for its own sake, and how that in itself is to His glory.

Another recurring joy of mine in coming here is to renew a longstanding relationship with a young man in his late twenties who has excelled as an artist, designer and now entrepreneur. It’s a quiet joy to sit in the artful coffee bistro in town he designed and created and listen to his dreams of birthing similar establishments all over the country. Here is a deeply committed Christian who has turned his art into an experience that is gracing people’s lives.

I’m thinking again of Haystack Rock and my morning run. There is no sign proclaiming that the beauty surrounding me is God’s work, though it is. No altar demanding that all fall down and worship the Maker, though many will. Mostly, God created this beauty just to exist. It is not a means to an end. It does not need a reason. Its reason is self-evident. In the same way my friend’s work glorifies God by simply being there and being a thing of beauty. If you care enough to get closer to this man and his work, finding the presence and purposes of God there will be hard to miss. But this is not a justification; it is merely a fact. Like the Haystack is a fact.

Many of you who read these devotionals regularly read them at work or just before leaving for work in the morning. You mustn’t belittle the importance of your position and your place. It is a major part of your mission to be where you are and do your work well to the glory of God. And that is reason enough.

PDL