 |
| The annual arrival of autumn leaves remind us of the orderly nature of our world. |
It’s interesting what we can glean about eternal truth from
everyday life circumstances. This came to mind recently while reading a
newspaper columnist’s musings about building a new bathroom in his home.
Frankly, I admire the guy – because even though I also spent part of my career
as a newspaper editor, the only thing I can accomplish with my hands is type
words on a keyboard.
This fellow explained about installing a subfloor, outlets
and switches that actually worked, wiring, drywall and other elements required
to make his bathroom functional and attractive. He ended his column with the
observation, “I know what it took to get it to the shape it’s in now.”
Imagine him proudly showing the new room to visiting guests.
They comment, “Wow! It looks great. Who built it?” and he replies, “You know,
that’s the funny thing. No one built it. My wife and I always wanted a master
bathroom, and then one day, voila, there it was! It just appeared.”
They might chuckle at first, but if they thought he was
serious, they would either check him for a high fever, call 911, or slowly move
toward the front door. Because we all know that something doesn’t come out of
nothing. For every effect, there must be a cause.
 |
| Remodeled bathrooms don't just "happen." |
My wife and I experienced the same thing when we had two
bathrooms remodeled in our home. Unlike the columnist, I had nothing to do with
the projects except moving a few items in and out. But we had a very skilled
craftsman, a specialist in flooring and tile work, who did the remodeling for
us. When friends visited, they would always ask, “Who redid your bathrooms?”
They knew somebody had done it.
Yet there
are many strident, stubborn proponents of the so-called Big Bang theory, which
asserts that one day (before there were days, or hours, or even minutes), an
extraordinary event occurred for no reason, with no purpose, all on its own – bringing
something out of absolutely nothing. No only that, but this “something” has
turned out to be phenomenally orderly, generally functioning in very
predictable ways that can be studied by various scientific disciplines.
But, they
claim, there was no first cause, no intelligent design, no meaning or purpose
behind any of it. It just was, and is, and supposedly, always will be.
I get it:
If you reject God, if you refuse to believe or accept the idea of a divine
Creator, you do have to come up with some alternative explanation. So the “Big
Bang” seems to do the job, even though its original premise flies directly
against everything we know and have observed, even though the eyes of science.
Our
magnificent world, not to mention the entire universe, operates in wonderful
harmony and amazing order. Even though the natural course of things – according
to various theories and laws of physics – if left unmanaged, is to move toward
disorder. (I could offer my desk as proof; I straighten it up, and seemingly
within moments, it’s already turning back into a mess.)
Whenever we
walk into a restaurant and admire the décor, or sit in our car and it
predictably starts when the key turns in the ignition, we know this didn’t
happen by accident. There was a “creator” and a “builder,” armed with plans for
how things should look and operate. We don’t need to be convinced of this.
So with
leaves turning colors and then falling with the advent of autumn, and
temperatures dropping as winter approaches, these serve as reminders that the orderly
creation we observe is the result of the exquisite mind of the Creator God, who
informs us, “’For
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the
LORD” (Isaiah 55:8).
If there was a Big Bang, and perhaps there was, it’s the one
described in Genesis 1, when God spoke everything into being: “In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth… And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light…. God
saw all that he had made, and it was very good…” (Genesis 1:3-31).
No comments:
Post a Comment