Everyday is a Miracle!

Driving, walking, riding around these last few days one can’t help but notice that Spring has indeed sprung!

Suddenly the earth has responded to the increasing warmth of the Sun, and the world is awash with glorious colour – there’s Daffodils, Tulips, Primroses, Aubrietia, Forsythia, the fresh and varied greens of new leaf appearing … Suddenly out of the death of winter life bursts forth in an amazing array. Wow!

Looking at it and enjoying it I couldn’t help but think it’s all such an amazing miracle! Yes I know the biologists and scientists can give us all sorts of explanations, but at the end of the day no one can explain just how it happens – the why of life at all.

I grew up on a farm and for a number of years worked in glasshouse horticulture, and later in landscape and garden maintenance. Working with nature has so many variables. We are dependent on what’s already in the system, not all seeds are the same, germinating conditions vary, etc. To produce a new breed of animal takes a lot of work with many failures, the same goes for producing new strains of plant life, some are successful, many are not.

Knowing the work that goes into the development of new breeds, or plant life, or for that matter ways of combating the various illnesses and diseases that afflict them, one can’t help but be staggered at the whole idea of life and how it works at all.

Life is a miracle – that it evolved for no rhyme or reason to what it is today, with no mind, power, or purpose behind it, doesn’t make any sense.

The Psalmist (19:1-4) spoke about the universe being a witness to the God who created it, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day by day they pour out speech and every night reveals knowledge… their voice goes out through all the earth…”

I wonder, have you heard it, have you got the message?

Paul said “In him (God) we live and move and have our being.” The fact I’m sitting here full of life is staggering, an amazing being with an amazing array of systems and functions, with a brain that far excels any computer. Wow!

Are you taking too much for granted, going to fast and missing the voice of God in the world about you?

Do you need to recover the wow factor?

Why don’t you stop and go for a walk in a garden or park…. take time to observe the world around you….. think about it, smell the fragrances… look at the stars, think about their courses… feel the wonder of your own heart beat and breath….think about the miracle of it all…

Let the thought lead to the wonder and the wow, and the wow and the wonder lead to worship - without the wonder there is no worship.

“O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works Thy hands have made…. then sings my soul my Saviour God to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art!… When through the woods and forest glades I wander, and hear the birds singing sweetly in the trees….. then sings my soul my Saviour God to Thee, how great Thou art, how great Thou art!”

Life is a miracle, the world, yours and everyone else’s, take time to thank and praise God for it before you move on, and keep doing so when you do.

A Controversial Anniversary

A CONTROVERSIAL ANNIVERSARY
Yesterday (Tuesday 24th November) was the anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's, The Origin of Species.
 
Charles Lyell, who came up with the idea of geology’s millions-of-years and was Darwin’s mentor, wrote that he was motivated by the desire to, “free [the] science from Moses.” In other words, the creation account in Genesis. Science you see is not the problem, creation is. Creation has always stuck in the throat of humanity, because it begs the question of a Superior Being, and therefore the fact that we are not free, but have been given life and are accountable for the way that we live it. If we can get rid of God we are the master of our own destiny, answerable to no one, we can make the rules and sing with Sinatra "I did it my way."
 
The general theory of evolution has no scientific base, it is a philosophy. It starts with its presuppositions (a supposed idea about the way things are) and works the data accordingly. Sadly many evangelicals are being taken in by the pseudo-science that parades itself as true science, preferring to believe the pseudo-science and adapt the Bibles story to fit it.
 
In theistic evolution (the Christian version of evolutionary theory) man is still considered to be descended/evolved from the 'apes,' yet the Bible unequivocally says that God created man in his own image from the dust of the earth.
 
In danger of over simplification let me put it this way: The theistic evolutionist gets around this by saying that's the origin, after all God created the dust (or even the explosion that led to the dust), but humanity came further down the line when God selected a pair of more developed 'apes' and breathed into them the breath of life (literally, God was still creating and working to get to this point)!!! Now, if you can do that with the text anything goes, and the Bible can mean anything anywhere!
 
The fact of the matter is, the theory of general evolution is anti-God, it cuts at the very foundations of the Christian faith and the West today is beginning to reap the results of it.

Being made in the image of God gives humanity DIGNITY (think of all the effort to discover self-image; to be somebody) and correspondingly RESPECT for one another (think of the lack of respect for peoples lives, its cheapness, especially among the younger generations). It provides the basis for all human RELATIONSHIPS, husband and wife, parents and children (think of all the dysfunction and breakdown that goes on today), which in turn builds the basis of a stable SOCIETY. And because we live as those who are accountable to God it provides the basis for true JUSTICE for all people.
 
Above all it deals with mans real problem, his REBELLION, his sin, his alienation from God the true LIFE-GIVER. It cuts people off from the real SOLUTION, the GOSPEL - JESUS, the only one who is able to rescue us and renew our lives.