joeycope.com

I was fascinated by Bill Bryson’s book, “A Short History of Nearly Everything.”  Bridging topics from alchemistry to volcanoes, Bryson spun an entertaining story of scientific discovery, natural oddities, and the often humorous ways that men and women have stumbled through the ages.

What I was most taken by was the ever-more-apparent thought that the complexity of our physical world cannot simply be the product of happenstance.  When we look at the vastness of our universe — a vastness we don’t even know how to express — and we begin to wonder at the chance circumstance that life in the way we know it could just “be,” I can’t fathom that the intricate balance of temperature, elements, distance, and time simply fell together in this moment of time to bring us here.

I’m not smart enough to argue about how everything got to be the way it is — I have no pet theories and I certainly harbor no certainties.  I’m just confident that God had to have a hand in it.  And because Scripture tells us that he intentionally brought humans into existence, I have to think that he intentionally brought us into a physical world of change and wonder.

So, when I hear the stories of how we have, through the ages, poked at and wondered about this world, I have to be in awe of how God has blessed us not only with an intricate and wonderful place, but how he has also given us an immense laboratory for discovery.  And I believe that God is delighted when we take an interest in what he has provided.

And I think he giggles when we boast about what we’ve done.