The Science Guy

A few months back, I attended the Tableau conference where the keynote speaker was Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Bill Nye is a very popular science educator and known for his wit and high energy presentation. Nye said a lot of very interesting things - watch the first four minutes of the following video from this conference. He said something like "we are a speck that is standing with a bunch of other specks surrounded by a bunch of other specks that orbits around a speck among other specks in the middle of specklessness. In other words, we suck. Yet you can know your place in space and with your brain you can change the world." Earlier in the speech, he talked about finding how he came to be through water they found with life in it on Mars.

Nye, who is very entertaining, got a standing ovation. I found myself with a deep sense of sadness that this man, brilliant as he was, could view his origin and his significance through the lens of himself. In my wildest imagination and as someone who did not always have a personal faith,  I could not even possibly imagine the complexity of space and of humans just coming to be from nothing. Nothing I observe points to that. I see a great designer who fashioned the vastness of the universe and then fashioned human beings in His image. I saw that even before coming to a personal faith.

I am humbled that the creator of the heavens and the earth has desired a personal relationship with me. I look into the vastness of space and I do see how seemingly insignificant we are. Yet I contemplate the infinite worth that God my creator gave to me. I imagine the ultimate cost that God paid to redeem me from the bondage of my sin through His son Jesus. I think it takes far less faith to believe that a personal God created man in His own image and bought a relationship with him than my origins are from water on Mars.

Every rejection of a creator God ultimately comes back to pride. We want to be the captain of our ship, to control our own destiny. We hate the thought of being accountable to someone. So we fashion ourselves as our own god. So when we hear this kind of thing, it actually sounds good to us. Paul says we worship the creation rather than the creator (Rom 1:16). I am reminded by his words to the Corinthian church - "But a natural man doe not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised".  A creator God who loves you longs for you to come to Him. 

Cicada Lessons

We are at the tail end (no pun intended) of the cicada invasion. These little buggers depending on where you live in NE Ohio are everywhere. There is a neighborhood by where I work where they are particularly prominent. I learned a whole lot about cicadas reading up on them on websides like cicadamania.com.

 When we look at things in nature like cicadas, we can have one of several reactions. We can say to ourselves, "so what" and just move on with our lives. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we can marvel at these things and think they are the end in and of themselves. Or we can admire and draw from the great Creator God who fashions an unbelievable and complex world. In many cases, cicadas and much of nature serves to remind us of what life is like, especially in perspective to eternity. For example:

1. Cicadas remind us of the cycle of life. Cicadas have a very predictable life cycle much like the seasons that should remind us of life and death as matters of course in this life post the fall.
2. Cicadas remind us of the brevity of life. Cicadas have a short life span and their life span as adults outside the ground is a mere 2-3 weeks.
3. Cicadas remind us of resurrection. They emerge from the ground just as God brings forth life out of the ground as part of the creation of man and the subsequent resurrection of all men whether to destruction or new life (heaven or hell).
4. Cicadas remind us of new birth. Cicadas emerge from the ground as nymphs and shed their exoskeleton skin for a new purpose. While unfortunately their life as adults is brief, ours in a resurrected body are created for eternity.
5. Cicadas remind us of courtship (ok maybe this one is a stretch) - Cicadas actually sing to attract their mates. Males sing, females respond, mating begins, and the cycle of life begins again. Somehow the attractiveness of their mates is a natural course of life. I found on the cicadamania site a place where you can listen to all of their singing and noises.

I marvel at what God is doing in creation. I am sorry, but even when I was not a follower of Jesus, I never doubted in an orderly, complex creator. And when you look a little closer, you can experience and see much of what life is about.