When I was 11, my dad decided to take the Boy Scouts from our church to Colorado for a campout in the mountains. The trip wasn't going to be long, from the flat wheatfields to the elevated foothills of the Rockies. A couple hour drive we'd make to find the broken foothills of the Rockies from the squat flatlands we'd just departed..

When we arrived, I took a few moments to stand behind the station wagon to look back east at the nearly trackless space between us and the far away farm town in West Kansas.

Not having read the Wizard of Oz, I didn't think of the famous linem "It's not Kansas anymore Toto!", but I did try to see into the haze and penetrate the distance to see the prairie we'd just left. Nope, wasn't going to happen, just too much particulate. We'd traveled perhaps 200 miles from Scott City to this plateau from where we'd hike into the forests even higher to reach the verdant green valley where we would pitch a couple of tents for a few weekdays.

In this thinner air, it was easy to realize the mangnitude of Creation and the Glory of God before and behind us, from the reaches of distant cultivation to this hilly piece of mountain and valley. You couldn't plow most of it, but the tall confers leaped in my boyish eyes to the sky. God's work and his power replendant in the nature before us!

I am God, there is none like me, scripture says! Beyond the concrete canyons of a city crisscrossed by carpets of pevement the spread of grass, hils, trees and snow where summer temperatures touch but lightly, I could quickly feel the touch of His hand in these huges stones around us, and the steep hills towering away beyond. This morning it is eighty outside mu office. There is still snow on the heights of the Rocky Mountains!

Lord Jesus as we start this week, may we see the magnificence of your hand and remember You! Please be with Cherie, Karen, our families and help us this next five days to do what You need us to perform, to worship You in our labors and to be the light someone will see and Jesus in us.