"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard" (Psalm 19:1-3).

Camping out in the wintertime, my son and I snuggle into our way-too-tight long johns purchased at a discount from a local sporting goods store. And now we're ready to insert ourselves between two lengths of flannel lining encasing the last feathers of a wayward duck, protected on the outside by a waterproof synthetic bag in which we'll sleep. Yes, we are mountain men and have the beginnings of frostbite to prove it.

The winter breeze up here in the mountains has become a howling wind with temperatures that would frost the paws off a polar bear. Nestled in our sleeping bags, we are scrunched in a pyramid-shaped, water-and-wind-resistant wilderness house called a two-man pup tent--built by city folk to fit only 1 1/2 men. Yet we have warmth. We are like two warm biscuits grandma used to make, tightly wrapped in tin foil. But come the morning there will be no grandma to call us to breakfast. It's just the two of us in the wilderness--with God who created it all watching over us.

"The day is Yours, the night also is Yours; You have prepared the light and the sun. You have set all the borders of the earth; You have made summer and winter" (Psalm 74:16-17).

It's as if winter, which has overtaken a short autumn, is laughing at us. The wilderness forest waited patiently while we laboriously pounded in our tent stakes and tied the tent down. The stakes belong to it now, for its frozen earth has crept up to entrap them, making sure they will never leave the ground again. And now it waits for morning when we will venture outside into its pine-scented forest and its beckoning, ice-laden arms.

The first morning comes too quickly. Overnight, the weather had breathed a thick layer of frost and ice across our campsite. I awake warm and toasty, happily snuggled deep in my sleeping bag, waiting for breakfast and saying to my son, "You got a campfire going yet?" After a couple of grunts from my son, who still doesn't realize how old his dad is, he replies, "Morning, Dad. You said last night that you were gonna' fix the first breakfast."

But that was last night in front of a warm, roaring campfire. He never listened to me that closely 10 years ago when he was 16. Why now? I had said I would make the first breakfast, just to show him how it's done up here in the great outdoors. And now I'm wishing I had played ignorant and said, "I don't know how to fix breakfast anymore...I'm getting old, need help; I'm sure glad you're here son or I'd starve for sure. Please fix breakfast for your old man, okay?"

"LORD, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am" (Psalm 39:4). I drag myself out of my sleeping bag, dressing in so many layers of clothing I look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Waddling out of the tent I am met with the most frightening thing you can confront in the mountains during winter--reality! It's really, really, really cold! Surely God would not let me freeze to death here. I need to get a fire going quick! I am tempted to dive back into the tent and wait for lunch.

"Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work..." (James 1:3-4).

Have you ever yelled at a piece of wood? I mean frozen wood, frozen wood chips, frozen kindling? Have you ever prayed for a stick match to light?

Not doing so well with patience and forgetting I'm the big "mountain man," I get the gasoline can out of the truck, splash it over the wood, back off 20 feet and strike and throw that last match to the wood, yelling, "Burn, baby! Give me some heat!"

That gets the campfire burning pretty well. Then I open the ice chest, wanting to crawl inside because it's warmer in there than it is out here. But another dilemma faces me: how to thaw the pancake batter. Even the eggs are frozen enough to play nine-ball on any pool table back in town. Back in town? Restaurants? Yeah!! No, wait a minute. I can do this. All I need is to have patience and to stand a lot closer to the fire. As my backside begins to toast, I look around at the stark beauty of this winter wonderland God has created and allowed us to share.

"Unto You, O God, we give thanks! For Your wondrous works declare that Your name is near" (Psalm 75:1). "Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be reounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered" (Psalm 40:5). While the eggs and pancake batter defrost next to the campfire, I begin noticing the faint, almost hushed pink and light orange on the horizon as the sun peeks over the edge of the world. I kneel in awe as I look from our mountain towards a horizon now brilliant with pink, yellow, orange, red, blue and green. The sun's top edge is only a sliver of radiant orange nudging a dark blue sky, but the colors radiating and emanating from it in all directions take my breath away. I am watching the birth of a brand-new day.

There are only short minutes to stare in wonder. Then the rising sun splits the sky with crimson arrows, and its rays momentarily blind my sight. Blinking my eyes to regain my vision, I realize it is time to slap some flapjacks on that heated griddle, along with some scrambled eggs and diced potatoes. I pour orange juice, and call my son. Being the great son he is, he offers to prepare breakfast the next morning, so I can stay in the warm tent. Yeah, sons are like that. "No problem, I'll handle it," I tell him. "I'll be up early tomorrow morning anyway, so I'll go ahead and fix breakfast again." That night, after a great day of hiking around our wilderness, I explain what I'd experienced while watching the sunrise. The next morning we are both out of bed at the same time. We yell at the frozen wood for only a few seconds because we don't need a campfire. The cold doesn't bother us this morning. We are up to share the mountain sunrise together. With our arms across each other's shoulders we both feel warm as we kneel and watch the spectacular birth of that new day.

The same colors of pink, yellow, orange, red, blue and green flare and rise from the horizon. Radiating in brilliance, as if to herald the arrival of royalty, the sun's edge captures the harsh blackness of space and softly transforms it into the beautiful, soft blue of a morning sky.

"O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!...When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man, that You are mindful of him...?" (Psalm 8:1, 3-4). Shoulder-to-shoulder, we kneel, humbled by what we see. As those many colors transform into bright blue sky, my son catches his breath and whispers, "Only God could create something as beautiful and awesome as this." I nod in agreement.

"...The earth is full of the goodness of the LORD. By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth...Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast" (Psalm 33:5-6, 8-9).