It’s only been five days, but many of us are feeling the whiplash of our good intentions and lofty goals crashing against the restlessness of our world. The very same restlessness that made us wish away our last year, which is easy to do between December 25th and December 31st, but ill advised early January. How do we recover from this? What do we do when the darkness begins to choke our hope away? In his fantastic poem, Wendell Berry gives us the answer:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
What exactly do we learn from the peace of wild things? “28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” (Matthew 6:28-32) According to Jesus, what do we learn when we “come to the peace of wild things”? First, that God cares equally for all of creation, no matter how significant or insignificant it may seem. There is no one and nothing too little to fall away from his faithful and loving watch. Second, that God caring for us means not only finding ways to survive but also to thrive. He blesses us with beauty, hoping we will find at least one thing to be joyful about even in the bleakest days. Third, that creation lives in a state of joyful abandon to its Creator. It doesn’t “toil nor spin” because it trusts in the provision of its Good Gardener.
So should we. Both Berry and Jesus point us to the wild things, and their carefree and trusting living, as not only a revelation of the heart of God but also of the lives we should live. Lives of trust, knowing that no matter how loud the storm may be or how penetrating the cold may feel, the promise is that, in Christ, love, and the life that it sustains, will prevail. Therefore, my friend, as you find yourself struggling with the realization that 2026 is not that different from 2025, rest in the peace of wild things and the promise they carry: our Heavenly Father knows what we need. At home, at work, in our bodies and minds, with our kids, in our marriage. He knows. He cares. He provides. And sooner rather than later, life will forever burst forth.
Pastor Joel Navarro, Piedmont Park Seventh-day Adventist Church
