Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
Psalm 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
1 Timothy 4:4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving;
“When I reflect on all the variety among the animals and birds – differences in size, shape, colors, habitats, and so on – I can’t help but believe that our Creator has great artistic imagination is shaping animals and birds out of the same dust as us humans.” (These Days, October 2, 2024)
When you think about God, when you talk to God, how do you address God? How do you conceptualize the Creator of all Creation? In Masonic prayers, God is sometimes addressed as “Grand Architect of the Universe.” I must admit that when I think about God, I picture God as the ‘Great Engineer of Creation.’ This morning, after reading that devotional, I am wondering, “Do lawyers imagine God as the Great Lawgiver?” Do doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers think of God as the ‘Great Healer’?
I was trained in STEM and practiced a STEM profession decades before anyone used that acronym in conversation or writing. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics dominated my academic and professional lives. I had a very neat, orderly understanding of God and of Creation. My understanding was (remains?) biased toward thinking about God in terms of thermodynamics, the science of heat, work, temperature and their balance and influence on energy, entropy and matter. Even today, I understand oceanography and meteorology in terms of heat transfer systems.
Then, I went to seminary. I was introduced to philosophy and concepts of Christian worldview. There really is a world, a meaningful world, beyond STEM. There are entire fields of study and understanding that do not require any mathematics beyond the ability to make change when paying for something! Who knew?!?
Evidently, for many years, I was oblivious to some of the songs we sing during worship. Now, every time we sing For the Beauty of the Earth or All Things Bright and Beautiful, I am made keenly aware of our Creator’s great artistic imagination.
The psalmist asked, “8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” What, indeed?
God created us to tend God’s garden (Genesis 2:15) Read the Creation Story in those first three chapters of Genesis. Marvel at the intricacy of God’s Creation. Stand in awe of the complexity of that creation. All of it created by God. Realize how many human fields of endeavor are spanned by those three chapters. Geology, astrophysics, physics, astronomy, chemistry and all the other sciences in STEM. And, all of God’s Creation operating together in unison according to the mathematics in STEM. Over the millennia of human existence, we have developed all of the technologies and engineering disciplines included in STEM.
It is easy to arrogantly imagine that we humans have developed all of the science, all of the technology, all of the engineering and all of the mathematics incorporated into our new buzz word, our acronym of STEM. But, all of that pales in comparison to what God created in 6 days . . . from nothing except God’s creative Words, “Let there be . . .”
Whether we understand God as the Great Lawgiver, the Grand Architect or the Master Engineer is not the important, significant issue. It is okay, even if we think of God as the Master Painter or Sculptor. What is important is that we do think about God, that we do talk about God, that we do honor, love and worship God. Over and over, I am reminded of Jesus’ words, "Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." Part of that love is to talk to God often, to thank God for “all the variety among the animals and birds,” to thank God for Creation. Remember those words from those 2 hymns, For the Beauty of the Earth or All Things Bright and Beautiful. Thank God for it all.
Stay safe, pray and pray often, trust God,
Pastor Ray