"One cannot coerce the summer into corning, one must wait for it"

The relation of the human to the created world around him is characterized in the first place by the fact that the human receives. God gives, we receive: that is the melody which Luther is always playing, in constantly new variations.

[...]

We must assert that it is God, not we or our neighbor, who is at work in the workshop which nature constitutes. The one who is at work in nature without interruption is God, and he is creating. The concept of nature belongs primarily to dogmatics, not to ethics. What God's work in creation demands of us is not first action, but faith. This is declared already in the Sermon on the Mount. The lilies of the field and the birds of the air instruct us, according to Jesus, about "care-free-ness" as the only completely natural attitude in life. Be not anxious for clothing or for food! God cares for you, he knows what you need.

(Gustaf Wingren, "The Doctrine of Creation: Not an Appendix but the First Article" in Word & World 4/4, 1984)