If a Tree Falls....Lessons from Outer Space

I grew up with the riddle you may have also heard: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?  Sound, of course, interpreted as being something that only makes sense if it ends up in waves that collide with a human eardrum, sending a message to the brain. It’s like asking, did an event really happen, or does it matter if no one was there to witness it?

God leaves clues all over the place of his existence: “[His] invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature…[are]clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” Romans 1:20. David says in Psalm 19: 1-4 that “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim His handiwork. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. [Their] voice goes out over all the earth” 

Clearly the Lord makes Himself known -  loudly - through His creation. He wants us to know He’s real, that He’s here, that He’s other, Holy, glorious. Yet as the spectacular photos sent back from the Hubble telescope of previously unseen deep space reveal, there are so, SO many things the human eye has never seen, and never will see, that are part of God’s creation.

So I've been pondering:
“Lord, who did you make all that beauty for? And why have you made so much of it hidden for so long?”

My question has become a prayer and here just hints of the answers He has whispered to me as I sit here:

Psalm 139:15- My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth...  God let even the creation of a human being – something scientists only recently garnered the technology to observe – happen “in secret”.

Mark 4: ²⁶ He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.  God has given us examples from agriculture of the mystery in how He creates and reproduces living things.

There are also recently discovered, amazing bio-luminescent creatures in the deep sea, many of which have yet to be found. No one was around to see the outrageous zoo that was once the Earth during the age of dinosaurs – all we are left with are clues and fossils.  Species of butterfly, lizards, mammals and even fish are still being discovered every year.   Why bother?

He Dwells in Beauty

Our God, who loves to fascinate the human eye, is Beauty itself and He dwells in beauty. “Heaven is My throne and earth is My foot stool. Who [can] build a house for Me?” - Isaiah 66:1   While we may not know all that is in the heavenlies, He does, and He has created the brilliant sky show for His own pleasure and not just for ours. It is His adornment; His habitation. The fraction of it we get to see and know and enjoy is grace, pure grace, because He also loves to give us previews of the world to come. But inasmuch as Jesus is preparing a place for us in heaven, as Master architect and designer, the Three-in-One God has created the magnificent universe for Himself.

It’s all Glory

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings - Proverbs 25: 2  Throughout the ages, the Lord has left it for us to discover all that He is. (“It’s for me to know and for you to find out”). We are a kingdom of priests and a royal nation ( 1 Peter 2:9) and it's our glory to search out the heavens, the seas, the undiscovered cavities of the earth to see what lies hidden. To be fascinated, to be in awe, to wonder at every new discovery – every shooting star, every image of a quasar, the space between the atoms – and to praise God for it and remember it's just a taste.

Lord, I thank you for this revelation of the paradox of a universe that speaks and yet keeps secrets. I thank you for the grace of what you do reveal and for the hope of an eternity to for us to search things out. Amen.