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| "Raccoons at Sunrise" (that last drink of water before sleep) 16x20 acrylic on canvas |
From my bedroom window, I watched three raccoons shimmy head first down a live
oak tree. Since it was barely dusk, I figured they were foraging early. At
first glance, I thought they were large house cats; but three together? When
their ringed tails and bandit eyes appeared in the ebbing twilight, I was blown
away!
I often walk or sit under that tree. The squirrels amuse me as they
chase each other’s tails. Blue jays screech from time to time, and playful
goldfinches proffer a twinkling counterpoint in the bright sunlight. I’ve seen
brown thrashers, loggerhead shrikes, and pileated woodpeckers in those gnarled
branches. I’ve watched red-tailed hawks perch and search for prey within a
hairs breadth from where I’m standing. But I never imagined there were wild raccoons
sleeping in furry balls right over my head. How could I have missed them?
The world is full of hidden treasures all around us, and miracles
and wonders from God. Just because we can’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not
there.
Bill Maher, a comedian and avowed atheist doesn’t believe in either
religion or God. He holds tightly to his beliefs. Perhaps he’s afraid that if
he lets go of his skepticism, he might find out he’s wrong?
For believers, God is real. He has answered their prayers and
spoken to their hearts. To deny this reality would be to disavow their personal
and private experience. This personal witness becomes a sure foundation of
knowledge that cannot be denied.
Maher is like a child who sits before a plate of Brussels sprouts
and declares he doesn’t like them, even though he’s never tasted them. Then he
hides the evidence of their existence under his plate or under a nearby lettuce
leaf and tells his mother (and everyone else) that the Brussels sprouts don’t
exist because he (and you) can’t see them.
To a Christian, Maher’s position is both immature and foolish; like
my story of the raccoons: “Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re
not up there.” This is where that invisible component called “faith” comes in.
Why is it so hard to believe that God exists when evidence of his creations are
all around us? Is Evolution really a
substantial explanation for our existence or is it still, after many decades,
only a theory, an excuse, a crutch, for non-believers?
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| "Brown Thrasher" 16x20 acrylic on canvas in barnwood frame |
Technology has advanced in quantum leaps over the past 30 years.
Today transmitters communicate around the globe and into outer space, yet they
are so small you can hold them in the palm of your hand or on a fingertip; some
are even microscopic. These electronic devices may look naive and primitive
fifty years from now as newer, smaller, faster, and smarter gadgets replace
them. It’s simply a matter of time, degree and intelligence.
During the day, you can’t see the stars, but that doesn’t mean
they’re not there. Conversely, on a stormy day the sun’s light is blotted out,
but its radiance still exists and glows continually in spite of the weather.
God’s radiance and reality are constant and eternal, in spite of our darkened
imperfect minds and man-made barriers.
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| "Looking over the Salt Lake valley from Immigration Canyon" |
How foolish we are as humans to deny the existence of God because
we cannot see him, because we don’t understand his ways, or because we can’t
find physical evidence or proof that he is real; even though countless miracles
happen every day in the realms of nature, science, medicine and personal
encounter.
“But there’s a logical, scientific explanation for everything,”
some may counter. And when there isn’t, science is all too eager to supply one,
or at least a theory of rhetorical possibilities. We’ve lost that childlike
quality of trusting divine truth and promise. The young child who leaps off of a
ledge into the waiting arms of his or her father exercises this trust through love,
knowledge, and personal experience. He or she has learned that their earthly father can
be trusted.
We need this kind of faith again in our world to bring back God
into our hearts. It’s a “letting go” of pride, bitterness, and stubbornness;
character attributes that harden our hearts and close our minds to truth.
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| "Looking back across the causeway that bridges the Great Salt Lake, between Antelope Island and the city." |
In “Our Daily Bread,” a Christian pamphlet produced monthly by RBC
Ministries, the following story was included in the October 9 reading:
“If we’re not careful, we may become like the man who prided
himself on being an expert archer. The secret to his success was that
after he shot his arrow at the side of a barn, he painted a bull’s-eye around
the arrow.”
Many people are so eager to be right, or so hungry for success and
notoriety that they paint a ring around their own favorite causes, special
interests or personal agendas and then proclaim that they’ve hit the bull’s-eye
of truth.
Proverbs 14:12 tells us: “There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way of death.”
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| "Barn Swallows" on Antelope Island outside the Gift Shop" |
God doesn’t need to prove his existence to us; it is we who need to
conform to his will. He is the bull’s-eye we should aim for, not some
delusional man-made target created by people who think they are smarter than
God.
