The Great Teacher brought His hearers into contact with nature that they might listen to the voice which speaks in all created things. As their hearts became tender and their minds receptive, He helped them to interpret the spiritual teaching of the scenes on which their eyes rested. The parables, by means of which He loved to teach lessons of truth, show how open His spirit was to the influences of nature and how He delighted to gather the spiritual teaching from the surroundings of daily life. TEd 61.1
The birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the sower and the seed, the shepherd and the sheep—with these Christ illustrated immortal truth. He drew illustrations also from the events of life, facts of experience familiar to His audience—the leaven, the hid treasure, the pearl, the fishing net, the lost coin, the prodigal son, the houses on the rock and the sand. In His lessons there was something to interest every mind and appeal to every heart. Thus the daily task, instead of being a mere round of toil, bereft of higher thoughts, was brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and the unseen. TEd 61.2
So we should teach. Let children learn to see in nature an expression of the love and wisdom of God. Let the thought of Him be linked with bird and flower and tree. Let all things seen become interpreters of the unseen. In this way all the events of life will be a means of divine teaching. TEd 61.3
As they learn thus to study the lessons in all created things and in all life’s experiences, show that the same laws are given for our good, and that only in obedience to them can we find true happiness and success. TEd 62.1