I'm in the process of launching a new Content Management System for some of my clients who own websites. The control panel for my clients' websites gives them fine-tuned control not just over the appearance of the site, but also over how it appears in different devices (desktops, phones, etc).

It's exciting for me to be launching this software, but it's even more exciting to hear the positive feedback from web masters who are enjoying creating content for their websites. "This is fun," I heard from a couple clients, and one client is creating beautiful pages filled with images and nicely formatted text that looks great not only on a desktop computer, but also on tablets and phones.

I sent that client an e-mail, saying, "By the way, your site looks great -- you're really doing a great job of building your pages!"

His response was interesting: "Regarding the site, I appreciate the compliment, but it would be like God telling me that I'm doing a good job with His word. Can't really take any credit for it. I'm just utilizing a good creation."

An interesting comparison. But it got me thinking...

There is really a very strong sense of satisfaction for me in watching people make use of the software I created to make something beautiful. I guess you could say that I "delight" in seeing what people are doing with what I built.

In the same way, don't you suppose God takes a great deal of delight in watching as we make use of His creations in good and beautiful ways? When I pick up my guitar and improvise something new, I'm really just building on something God created in the first place. And it honors him, as the Creator, when I do so.

So be beautiful. Improvise. Make beautiful music, carve beautiful sculptures. Photograph beautiful rivers, sunsets, flowers and oceans. Stand at the top of a mountain at sunrise and belt out a verse of "This Is My Father's World." It's all just stuff that God made in the first place, but don't you think he loves our improvisations on his handiwork?

I do.

A few years ago a group of fishermen from New Zealand were down in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) when they saw something rather unusual in the water -- something they had never seen before. It was like a squid, but much larger. And it was chowing down on Patagonian toothfish, which are about six feet in length.

These brave fishermen decided to capture the creature, and bring it aboard their ship. When they got it on board, they saw that it was indeed like a squid, but with some significant differences. This creature had eyes the size of dinner plates, and on its tentacles (which were sixteen feet long), instead of just suckers, it also had hooks, which had full 360-degree rotation. Thus, instead of just latching onto prey with suckers, it could dig into them with hooks.

A nasty creature.

When they brought the thing back to New Zealand, scientists there declared that the creature was not even full grown -- just a baby! They called it a "colossal squid," and estimated that, when full grown, it would be about as long as three school buses lined end to end.

Wouldn't want to meet that thing in the water!

As I read about that, I thought, "For hundreds and hundreds of years, mankind has been sailing the seas, exploring its depths, and we have never seen this thing until now? How enormous the oceans are, and how incredibly complex...and who knows what else might be down there?"

Who knows? God knows. Psalm 29 says:

The world is full of strange and marvelous things. Some beautiful, some extraordinary, some frightening, even terrifying. But God knows them all, for He is their creator, and He is over them all. And everything out there declares the glory and the majesty of its creator.

29:9The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”Psalms 29:9 says: "in His temple all cry, "Glory!"