What campfires can teach us
I know just enough science to trouble me, yet not enough to create a profession. My high school chem and physics captivated me, and I even taught junior high science for two years. My Sierra trips awoke an interest in geology and astrophysics, enough to purchase a graduate level text, “Annals of the Former World.” Frequent visits to a dictionary help me understand it. Guess getting philosophical and theological were destined at French Camp on Rock Creek last October.
Entranced
by swirling flames licking at the wood in the firepit
providing heat on a chilly Sierra night
releasing energy
stored from a very small sun
93 million miles distant
captured by a pine tree
released on this evening
an unseen sun warming me
How detailed you must be
to design such a system
How powerful you must be
to create this out of nothing
How profligate you must be
to do this all
for us
My exposure to science continually confirms and challenges my faith through nature, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard” (Psalm 19:1-3).
Let’s look into God’s profligacy in the universe. Hugh Ross in “Creation and Time” tells us that while we can only see about 6,000 stars, the universe contains about 10 billion trillion, or a 1 with 22 zeroes following. Why so many when we can see so few? Those stars control the mass density of the universe, which control the rate of nuclear fusion: how stars create the energy that streams to earth and is captured by plants. Like the pine I burned those nights.
With more stars, stars would burn up too quickly. With fewer, heavier elements could not fuse. Both extremes would make life impossible. So God created all those stars so we could live. Detailed. Omnipotent. Profligate.
Yes, this humbles us, as David experienced, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3-4). The sun, relatively a small one, dwarfs us, 93 million miles away. We humans seem quite puny and inconsequential.
But God created all this—for us. So we could exist. So we could know him deeply. Yes, we’re small, but, but exceptionally valuable. So, please add one adjective: Detailed. Omnipotent. Profligate. Loving.
Kick Starting the Application
Do you tend to get your self-worth from what you do, or how you look, or who you know, or from our loving and powerful God’s value of you? How might that make a difference in your life?
Does magnifying the work of God in the universe change how you relate to him?