Still with us
April 26, 2011 (Tuesday)
Scientists have looked into the heavens with telescopes that dazzle us with pictures of what has been seen. They have sent pictures back to earth of heavenly bodies 13.2 billion light years away. I don’t know about you, but I have a problem thinking about such great distances. Light travels at almost 187,000 miles per second. At that speed, in one year light will travel such great distances that a new measurement is required: the “Light Year,” which is the distance light travels in one earth year. Think about how far 13.2 billion light years must be. Inconceivable for me.
The Bible describes the creation of the world we can see without telescopes and includes the verse, “He made the stars also.”
“The stars also.”
For thousands of years, people looked up into the night sky, marveled at the Milky Way and the Constellations, and felt tiny. The Psalmist wrote (Psalm 8), “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy hands, the stars which thou hast made, what is man that thou art mindful of him?” Those were his observations as he looked up without a telescope. If it was overwhelming then, what is it now, in an age when we are measuring distances as “light years?”
There are many questions in our minds that we are unable to answer. We grapple with the infinite and unfathomable, and finally say to ourselves, “we will just leave that in the hands of God.” Why, then, will some of us boldly state our conclusions about such matters as if we had really come to understand it all? We should have some humility, and realize that, even in our age of reason and knowledge, there are still some questions that remain unanswered and problems that continue to be unsolvable.
Science uncovers the secrets of the material world, and explains “how stuff works.” Properly understood, it enhances our faith.
Spiritual reality strongly refuses to be found in the laboratory. There is a real and powerful spiritual dimension that demands faith from us.