By David Faust
My friends who are trained in mechanical and electrical engineering want to know how everything works. They enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together again. Not me. If my laptop works, my car runs well, and the furnace keeps my house warm, I am happy to trust the technicians with the details.
I understand, though, why miracles mentioned in the Bible make readers wonder, “How did that happen?”
My wife and I lead a small group for seekers and new believers. A young man in our group remarked, “I have questions about almost every line I read in the Bible.” A chapter like Matthew 14 makes him wonder, “How could Jesus walk on water and feed thousands of people with five loaves of bread and two fish?”
FEELING SMALL
The Bible isn’t the only information source that expands what we consider possible. The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day, 2021, and began sending images back to earth in July 2022. Stronger and quicker than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is producing mind-boggling images of distant galaxies. You don’t have to be an astronomer to be amazed by the vivid colors and massive size of what we’re discovering in deep space.
One of Webb’s first images showed a patch of sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, but it revealed thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of the universe. How tiny we are—and how little we understand about the universe where we live!
The psalmist David didn’t have a telescope, but he spent a lot of nights outdoors tending sheep, and the stars filled him with wonder. He told God, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3-4).
THINKING BIG
After calmly declaring, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” the Bible’s opening chapter says almost matter-of-factly, “He also made the stars” (Genesis 1:1, 16).
Isaiah urged, “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?” (Isaiah 40:26). Then he goes on to say that “the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth . . . gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” (Isaiah 40:28-29). Our planet is a tiny speck in the vast universe, and there are approximately 8 billion people on earth, but our heavenly Father cares about each person and counts the hairs on every head (Matthew 10:30).
BELIEVING GOD
Science can take us only so far. The more we learn about the universe, the humbler we should become. “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3).
I can’t explain how Jesus performed miracles, but it makes sense that the inventor of H2O would know how to walk on it and the designer of fish would have no problem multiplying them. We may not comprehend the “how” of biblical miracles, but the “why” is clear. Jesus’ miracles motivate us to believe and find “life in his name” (John 20:31).
Nobel prize-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg, a pioneer of quantum mechanics, put it like this: “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
Personal Challenge: Explain to a believer, seeker, or unbeliever why you believe in the existence and the love of God. What evidence compels you to believe?
I enjoy your material. You are a good man.