How Great Thou Art

God’s Creation

The news today says an American space shot has ended with the capture of particles from the tail of a comet known as Comet Wild 2. The particles are believed to be part of what was left over after the birth of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago. Just acquiring and returning the tiny particles for study here on earth is an amazing feat in itself. It reminds us how developed humankind has become.

Very soon we shall start to hear opinions as to what conclusions there might be from the study of the material. Doubtless the eventual conclusions that are offered will be that we are able to look even further back down the telescope of time. No doubt time will become even more difficult to understand when we start to discuss the beginnings of our Solar System. I was saying in an email to an American friend only today that it is difficult for we who live in the United Kingdom to comprehend the American idea of distance over land. We are such a small group of islands and the USA spreads for thousands of miles.

Today’s news means we shall have to change our appreciation of what large and great mean. To speak about the great workshops built by Boeing to construct the 747 will be as a minute speck when we speak of the Universe.

Yet one fact never changes. It is all God’s domain. As we have been given the intelligence to calculate a route for a spacecraft that travels 2.8 billion miles so too have we been given the task to care for the Earth, the Solar System and the Universe. As time moves on we are given more and more knowledge by using the brains the Lord gave us. So we need to remember it is thanks to him that we have achieved the goals we went out to achieve. There is an old adage that "there is nothing new under the Sun". What we are discovering was there all the time waiting to say "Boo!" as it was discovered.

I never cease to be amazed at the events that happen. Technology never stops moving forward. The discoveries we make often change our lives. Bit by bit we unfold the layers as we seek to master diseases like cancer. For a few months some years ago I worked from the Christie Hospital in Manchester where they specialise in treating cancer. Attached to the hospital are the Patterson Laboratories where the cutting edge work is happening. My wife and I toured the place on an open day and the Director told us about their work. The most reassuring words I heard were, "we’re getting there." This is another project which one day will succeed and cancer will become rare.

As God imparts knowledge the world changes. But little credit goes to the Almighty. We claim all the credit for ourselves. We need to remember that everything we are and everything we have is thanks to God, the great provider. It is often difficult for people to see through all the technical work and realise that God is there all the time. Instead of crediting Him with the gift of knowledge to humankind the claim is that men and women did this themselves.

It remains God’s world and His Universe. I am thankful to Him that I am living through this time of technological achievement for it is breathtaking at times. Not being a technical type I just gasp when I see what a 4 gigabyte hard drive looked like in 1995 and what a 40 gig drive looks like today! In a course I am doing presently I learn that the world wide web is only just into double figures in age. Yet, using it as often as I do it feels like it has always been here.

Being interested also in archaeology, I am aghast at the improvements in techniques in this sphere of activity. Is it not amazing that, despite what we do not know, we can discover what prehistoric people ate each day. Mind you, I am still not convinced that we have heard the last theory as to how the megaliths were transported to Stonehenge. Even more exciting are the discoveries in the Middle East that point to the earliest civilisations and a boat on the Sea of Galilee that was around at the time of Jesus. Even the bones of the High Priest, Caiaphas, have been unearthed in an ancient ossuary.

The world remains an amazing place where every time an answer crops up another question is raised. Never, never do we reach a point where we know everything. This will never occur and would be undesirable. There will always be a mystery. That mystery is God. This is why we worship Him. Whatever happens, whatever we discover there will always be that mysterious, inscrutable being who watches over those whom He has made. That great mystery points to why we should bow down before Him and say thank you endlessly.