A Daddy and His Little Boy Enjoy Creation

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In the mid- to late-1780s, a devoted daddy took his little boy on nature explorations. Decades later that little boy, all grown up, wrote about those days with his daddy. He said:

. . . the productions of Nature that lay spread all around, were constantly pointed out to me. They soon became my playmates . . . My father generally accompanied my steps, procured birds and flowers for me with great eagerness,—pointed out the elegant movements of the former, the beauty and softness of their plumage . . . [He] would speak of the departure and return of birds with the seasons . . . thus exciting me to study them, and to raise my mind toward their Creator.

After the daddy gave his little boy an illustrated book about birds, the little boy began to want to draw nature himself.

The little boy was John James Audubon. In the late 1830s, he published his multi-volume Birds of America. Many of the 435 life-size paintings in that publication contained more than one bird. The total birds that Audubon drew from nature and published in Birds of America numbered 1,065 birds from 489 species. Audubon positioned the birds as they are in Creation. His paintings are remarkable. They are much more than nature illustrations; they are works of art.

Audubon traveled down the Mississippi River and south to the Florida Keys, west to Texas, and north to Labrador to complete Birds of America. After publishing it, he and his son, John Woodhouse Audubon, began to travel and work on a book about mammals, entitled Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. When they returned from their travels, Audubon and his two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, worked together to complete their book about mammals.

John Woodhouse Audubon created this painting of his father.

Great blessings and benefits for generations began when a daddy gave time to his little boy and shared with him his wonder of God’s Creation. Every effort you make for your children is worth it. Jesus used the example of birds to let us know how faithful God is to take care of us.

Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow,
nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not worth much more than they?
Matthew 6:26

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