<25/8/25

The earth has never stopped speaking. It has been preaching since the first sunrise, long before our voices ever rose to drown it out. You can silence your phone, you can avoid the news, but you cannot silence creation. It testifies. It warns. It whispers. It cries out.

Look long enough at a forest and you will see your own soul staring back. The ground remembers every seed that was ever buried in it. A single acorn can become a cathedral of trees that swallow the horizon. None of them sprouted in a single instant of grandeur. Each began as something so small you could hold it in your palm and crush it with two fingers. That’s how life works. That’s how sin works too. What looks like nothing today grows into everything tomorrow.

A tree doesn’t collapse opposite the way it leans. Its fall is inevitable, predictable, already decided long before the crash. That’s us. Our lives lean in a direction - toward humility or pride, toward honesty or performance, toward God or away from Him. And when we finally fall, the angle was already written in our habits, in the slow bend of our character, in the daily compromises that bent us one degree further off balance.

The earth keeps preaching. Listen to the storm: people love the idea of rain until it soaks them. The rhythm of drops on the roof feels cozy as long as you’re inside by the fire. But when the rain invades your own day, when it ruins your plans, when it drenches your clothes, suddenly it’s not romantic anymore - it’s unwanted, intrusive, unfair. That’s the human heart. We love the drama as long as it’s not ours. We cultivate gossip the way clouds cultivate thunder, loving the spectacle of someone else’s storm. But when the downpour finally finds us, we cry out like victims, forgetting how often we cheered while it ruined someone else’s day.

The river has a sermon too. Water never flows uphill; it runs where gravity draws it. Our hearts follow the same pull - not gravity, but desire. You can pretend all you want, but your love will always reveal your direction. You may claim faith with your lips, but your river always exposes the truth. Watch what you chase. Watch what you run toward when nobody is watching. That’s where your life is going, whether you admit it or not.

And what about weeds? They do not ask permission. They thrive where nothing else does. They don’t need cultivation, only neglect. You don’t have to plant destruction for it to overtake you; you only have to leave the soil of your heart unattended. The ground is never neutral. If you don’t sow good seed, the thorns will claim it for you.

Even mountains speak. They look immovable, eternal, unshakable - but erosion is always at work. What looks strong in the moment can still be undone by time. A single gust doesn’t topple the peak, but steady winds carve it down inch by inch. That’s how faith erodes too - not by one dramatic blow, but by countless tiny breezes of apathy, doubt, distraction. We think we’re untouchable, but every mountain has its grave in the sea.

And then there is light. Lightning captures our attention because it is loud, dramatic, unforgettable. But lightning destroys. Rain, on the other hand, is quiet, steady, almost boring - but it brings life. We chase lightning in our spirituality - the spectacular, the emotional rush, the performance that gets noticed. We forget that real growth comes with the steady, unglamorous rain of obedience, prayer, humility. The flash fades, but the rain sustains.

This is the way of the world: everything outside us is also inside us. The laws of nature are not separate from the laws of the soul. The earth preaches in parables that echo through every field and every forest. You are not above it. You are not immune to it. You are part of it. Soil, seed, storm, tree, rot, fruit, weeds - these are not just things you walk past; they are metaphors of your life unfolding in real time.

So the question is not whether you will live by these truths. You already do. The question is whether you will live with them wisely or blindly. You can pretend the forest is silent. You can ignore the rain. You can stand on the cliff and mock erosion. But nature will not change its sermon for you. And if you don’t listen with humility, you will learn its lessons by force.

This is an invitation to see what has always been there. To let the tree, the river, the storm, and the soil speak to you. To hear the creation’s cry and realize it is echoing your own. Because the God who made the world built it to point back to Him - to warn us, to awaken us, to draw us from performance into surrender. The forest is not just outside of you. It is in you. And it is speaking. Speaking to everyone. But more than that, it's speaking to you.