Have you ever looked up at the night sky and thought that there had to be more? More than our tiny little lives? More than our tiny little world? More than our tiny little universe?
You’re climbing a mountain trail. You reach the top of the hill and there’s a break in the trees. You look to your left, and over the peaks of the neighboring mountain range you see an achingly beautiful sunset splashed across the sky in fiery oranges and sultry reds and burning purples. And suddenly you feel like this was painted just for you.
What if you feel these stirrings for a reason? What if that sunset is more than atmospheric shifts and refracted light? Scientists of an atheistic bent are always reminding us that the world only looks designed, right down to the absolutely beautiful elegance and information-jammed density of DNA. But what if other scientists like Stephen Meyer are right? What if our world looks designed because it is?
I read recently that people who have experienced a deep sense of awe are overwhelmingly more likely to believe in something bigger than themselves or have a religious experience than those who haven’t. I absolutely believe this to be fact. And I think it’s because when we experience that consuming wonder we are sensing the fingerprints of God.
Or maybe it’s more than that. Maybe we are hearing God’s soft whisper in our ear.
But now a voice touted as “reason” will sometimes butt in, its tone cold, calculating and self-assured. It reminds us that science has disproved the very existence of God. That God died with the flat world thesis and Ussher’s idea that the universe was 6,000 years old.
But here’s the thing: it ends up that voice isn’t reason at all. It’s really nothing more than the personal bias of a select group of individuals. In fact, the biggest scientific discoveries of the past 100 years have shown just the opposite. First was the extremely disconcerting notion that the universe had a beginning. Albert Einstein was so upset by this idea that he altered his theory of relativity (by adding the cosmological constant) so that the universe could still be seen to exist for an infinite amount of time. It was only sometime later that he admitted he had been extremely silly and had done it only for his own fears and belief system. Then there was the cell, which during the age of Darwin was believed to be a sack full of goo. Instead it was discovered to be a factory of mind-boggling complexity, guided by a programming language wrapped in a double helix that was strangely reminiscent of computer code.
The big bang and modern biology are two of the greatest signposts that there is a God. Go figure, huh?
Or, as one of my favorite quotes by Robert Jastrow puts it, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Maybe it’s time we allowed ourselves to wonder. Maybe we should open ourselves up to awe. Maybe there’s a reason your heart yearns for Someone bigger and greater than this universe, who at the same time loves you deeply and knows you completely.
Maybe God’s just waiting for you to listen for His whisper.
“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.”
- Psalms 19:1-4a (ESV)
References
Dr. Fazale Rana, “What Inspires Your Belief in God?”, Reasons to Believe, published online February 13, 2014.
Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, “Signature in the Cell”, HarperOne, published 2010.
Dr. Robert Jastrow, “God and the Astronomers”, Readers Library, published 2000.
“Cosmological Constant”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant, Wikipedia, last modified May 7, 2014.
“Ussher Chronology”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology, Wikipedia, last modified May 25, 2014.
Image (c) Can Stock Photo