Amazing - June 11, 2007
As I committed some brain
cells to determine a blog topic, the word amazing came to mind. Interestingly,
along with the word came a vision of the Aurora Borealis also known as
the Northern Lights. If you have ever been far enough north of the
equator to see this celestial light show I am certain that you will never
forget it. I know I never have, and have never seen anything so amazing
since.
A web search for the word
amazing can take you to such a variety of examples, definitions, images,
and treatises that you could go on a web surf expedition of mammoth proportions.
I know that because I did just that.
What was the most intriguing
was that the Wikipedia resource listed a series of song titles as its lead
items. Of course, Aerosmith (a personal favorite) and Madonna (not)
topped the list. Further I looked at dictionary values, and I must
admit followed a few bunny trails to the point where I threw my hands up
in defeat. I decided that if the casual reader of this blog would
care to that they could surf the word amazing for as long as their patience
would allow.
To return to the photo
and to look to the definitions for the “Aurora Borealis AKA Northern Lights”
you can be directed to explanations from mythology to astronomy.
As I recall it is a result of a magnetic phenomenon between the Earth and
the Sun with assistance from the solar wind.
More importantly, for
my money the definition, description, or the scientific explanation are
the least important. My reasoning is that thinking too much about
the cause and so forth detracts from the beauty and magnitude of how it
manifests itself to us.
Naturally for me, a Bible
verse comes to mind. Psalms 19:1 says in part, “The heavens declare
the glory of God”. Further for me, I find beauty and wonder in nearly
everything my eyes encounter and in each instance my thoughts turn to the
fact that everything that we are, and experience is a result of His actions.
You see it is my firm
conviction that we mortals spend entirely too much time discussing whether
God created everything in six days, as we know them on earth, or if He
set in motion a prescription for the universe and it took six thousand
millennia. In either scenario or others the miracle is still the
same.
What is fascinating to
me is that the scientific minds among us can look at the intricacy of our
world and the space around us and come to the conclusion that it happened
as a result of a cosmic accident. The scientists would have us believe
that everything came into being as a result of the “Theory of Random Sort”
or as it is known today, the “stochastic process”
The supporters of this
view would also tell us that given enough time and the right circumstances
we could create a completely assembled and functional television if we
spent enough time and effort shaking a box of its components. That
to me is even more far-fetched than creation is to an unbeliever.
The inter-reliance of
the various species belies the randomness. For example, many in the
plant family depend on another species to aid them in the reproductive
process. As a specific instance a flower depends on a bee or other
insect to carry its pollen to another blossom to complete the life cycle.
That is only one paradigm, but the same type of interdependency moves from
species to species and genus to genus.
Is everything in nature
amazing to you? It is to me! I cannot so much as look at a
stand of trees, a flower bed, a flock of birds, a stadium full of people,
and the Northern Lights without thinking about how amazing it all is and
how amazing God is.
In spite of the heavens
declaring the glory of God there is another thing that I find amazing.
It amazes me that someone can look at the intricacy, interdependence and
beauty of our world and then deny that God is who He says He is!
