Psalm 8:3-4
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. And the son of man that you visit him?
I remember being in college and hearing, for the first time, the theory that life simply came into being one day in the very, very remote past when just the right set of organic molecules happened to be collected in one place when some energy event occurred which caused the organization of the first celled organism. That organism, the theory goes, then began to replicate, differentiate, evolve, and organize until we arrived at the incredibly complex, interconnected global biome we enjoy today.
Here at last was an explanation that would allow me to abandon the last nagging vestiges of my Christian upbringing. Now I could simply indulge my flesh without guilt or fear. I embraced the theory with joy as it brought me liberation. Or so I thought.
Even understanding now that I was groping for a reason to sin without guilt, I still today can't imagine that I could have entertained that notion. I couldn't now feel more the opposite.
Yesterday I read something that touched on this issue in the comment section for a Facebook post featuring a link to a Showtime documentary about Atheism. One gentleman opined that "Christian's are in denial of what's right in front of their faces". He was referring to scientific progress which he felt to be hands down proof positive of the godless state of the Universe. My heart breaks for this misguided brother.
The fact is that it's the atheists who are in tragic denial of what's in front of their eyes. I find it amazing that one could daily examine the creation in the laboratory and never ponder the wonder of its existence. There is something rather than nothing. Through my spiritual eyes now, this something is proof positive of the God created and God-filled state of the Universe. He created it. We enjoy it.
It's so utterly human that would should spend our days looking deeper and deeper into nature, and, having only scratched the surface of the knowable (and never suspecting the existence of the unknowable), imagine ourselves to be the highest intelligence.
Paul, in response to those in Lystra who wished to regard he and Barbabas as Gods, told them "Nevertheless He did not leave himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." Acts 14:17
The liberation I felt that I'd experienced all those years ago ultimately proved to be no liberation at all. Indeed "freedom" of the flesh led me into heavier and heavier chains. I wouldn't realize true liberation for many years.
My prayer is that those who regard that wondrous world full of music, color, flavor, seasons, people, art, love and life as the result of that imagined random molecular accident in the remote past will instead come to understand it as the blessing that it truly is: The blessing of a loving creator.
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. And the son of man that you visit him?
I remember being in college and hearing, for the first time, the theory that life simply came into being one day in the very, very remote past when just the right set of organic molecules happened to be collected in one place when some energy event occurred which caused the organization of the first celled organism. That organism, the theory goes, then began to replicate, differentiate, evolve, and organize until we arrived at the incredibly complex, interconnected global biome we enjoy today.
Here at last was an explanation that would allow me to abandon the last nagging vestiges of my Christian upbringing. Now I could simply indulge my flesh without guilt or fear. I embraced the theory with joy as it brought me liberation. Or so I thought.
Even understanding now that I was groping for a reason to sin without guilt, I still today can't imagine that I could have entertained that notion. I couldn't now feel more the opposite.
Yesterday I read something that touched on this issue in the comment section for a Facebook post featuring a link to a Showtime documentary about Atheism. One gentleman opined that "Christian's are in denial of what's right in front of their faces". He was referring to scientific progress which he felt to be hands down proof positive of the godless state of the Universe. My heart breaks for this misguided brother.
The fact is that it's the atheists who are in tragic denial of what's in front of their eyes. I find it amazing that one could daily examine the creation in the laboratory and never ponder the wonder of its existence. There is something rather than nothing. Through my spiritual eyes now, this something is proof positive of the God created and God-filled state of the Universe. He created it. We enjoy it.
It's so utterly human that would should spend our days looking deeper and deeper into nature, and, having only scratched the surface of the knowable (and never suspecting the existence of the unknowable), imagine ourselves to be the highest intelligence.
Paul, in response to those in Lystra who wished to regard he and Barbabas as Gods, told them "Nevertheless He did not leave himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." Acts 14:17
The liberation I felt that I'd experienced all those years ago ultimately proved to be no liberation at all. Indeed "freedom" of the flesh led me into heavier and heavier chains. I wouldn't realize true liberation for many years.
My prayer is that those who regard that wondrous world full of music, color, flavor, seasons, people, art, love and life as the result of that imagined random molecular accident in the remote past will instead come to understand it as the blessing that it truly is: The blessing of a loving creator.
