A Picnic and a Show

I love a picnic. On Labor Day we sat out on a patio having a picnic. I noticed how big of a panorama of the sky was in front of us. There were no trees or building, nothing near us, to block part of the sky before us. I was struck by how wide and high the sky looked.

As the meal progressed, clouds began to roll in. Big cumulo-nimbus thunderheads. There was a little bit of lightning off in the distance. At one point we commented on how it smelled like rain. It was a feeling.

High above, over our heads were these towering thunderheads. One website says, “A good sized cumulonimbus cloud, or thunderhead, might be ten kilometers tall (six miles), with a base ten kilometers in diameter.”[1]  The tops of them radiant white in the late afternoon sun. The lower parts of them various shades of gray where the sun could not strike them. Then below them, obviously much lower in altitude, came in low, whispy but dense rain clouds. Dark. Almost black.

“Becca, look,” said Charlie. The white on the edges of the highest clouds was intense.

She began to snap pictures.

“It’s going to rain, really hard,” I said.

But it didn’t. A black cloud, quite low, rolled right over our heads, carrying literally tons of water. But it didn’t rain.

“He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them…”[2] said Job in the oldest book of the Bible.

“Look over here,” said Charlie. Another breathtaking panorama behind us. “But,” he said, “that is past us. It’s over there that is coming our way.”

A small, private airplane flew over, well below the billowing, roiling thunderheads. I said, “No one intentionally flies through one of those.”

I was looking straight up. The shining white edge of the topmost clouds moving across the lower black ones, forming black silhouettes of the edges of the ominous rain clouds. What a sight! “Can any one understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion?”[3]

Charlie interrupted my thoughts and pointed off into the distance, “That's the worst place.” It was an extremely black, low patch. Just by a quick scan of the sky, Charlie could point out the area where the storm would be greatest. “Who has put wisdom in the clouds, or given understanding to the mists?”[4] I guess we take that for granted. But the skies really do give us vital information about the weather, just by looking at them. There’s a pattern to it. A plan.

We began to retreat into the air-conditioned house, realizing God had put on a show for us. An everyday sight, yet so majestic when you stop to ponder it. “He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.”[5]

A few brave souls went back outside. Moments later they came running in through the sliding doors, “It started, then stopped, then started, then stopped… and then it came down like a curtain of water!” That was some serious rain. Little Kenzie said, "Wet!"

Like I say, I love a picnic. But a picnic and a show... that's the best. Thank you Lord.

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[1] http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1263/can-a-cloud-weigh-as-much-as-a-747

[2] Job 26:8

[3] Job 36:29

[4] Job 38:36

[5] Psalm 135:7
Special thanks to BlaineFranger.com/blog for photo of the clouds

This Cannot Be Random

A total eclipse of the sun is one of the most remarkable phenomena in nature. I remember being in the path of a total eclipse once, in South India. I was disappointed in that it didn’t get completely dark, but it did become like dusk in mid-day.

You have to be in the right place at the right time in order to see a total eclipse. The Gospel writer Luke states “darkness came over the whole land…” in the middle of the day when Christ was crucified. It is known that an eclipse occurred, very close to Jerusalem, on the 24^th of November in 29 a.d.[1] Was it a total eclipse that darkened the "whole land" at Jesus' crucifixion?

An eclipse is a remarkable thing. The Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon and the Moon is 400 times closer to the Earth. The result is that the Sun and Moon appear nearly the same size. There is no other planetary moon in our solar system where such a condition would exist.

When an eclipse occurs it offers the only chance to study the Sun’s chromosphere and the Solar corona. These outer regions of the sun are usually overpowered by the brilliant photosphere and cannot be seen. When a total eclipse occurs these layers become visible and can be studied.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Apologist Ron Mayers sees it this way. “Due to the regular and non-arbitrary relationship of God and created nature, nature can be studied, understood, and even greatly controlled and enhanced by man. Chemistry and biology, physics and physiology, along with innumerable other disciplines that are concerned with nature can be investigated by the scientist because there is this inherent regularity.”[2]

There is an “inherent regularity” around us. We’re able to study the sun and moon during a total eclipse. Data can be obtained concerning the size of the sun. Is it getting smaller? “One of the first confirmations of general relativity [Einstein’s Theory] was the bending of star light by the sun's mass, which could be observed only during a total solar eclipse when the images of stars were visible near the sun's edge.”[3] 

Friends, the size and positioning of the Sun and Moon in relation to Earth is purposeful! It cannot be random.

“The day is thine, the night also is thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.”[4]

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[1] “Eclipses in History,” http://asaaf.fis.ucm.es/eclipseanular/historia-in.htm

[2] Ronald B. Mayers, “Balanced Apologetics,”  (Secunderabad, India: OM Books, 2000) 26

[3] Danny R. Faulkner, http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/35/astrodesign.html

[4] Psalm 74:16 (American Standard Version)

Sawtooth Miracle

Recently, I was in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Looking up at one of the towering peaks it was obvious where the mountains got their name. It was a huge, spiked tower of rock rising 2000 feet above me. All down the side of the mountain in front of me was a field of boulders of all sizes.

Sitting on a Toyota-sized boulder embedded in a creek my mind went to work. Either a massive landslide had occurred at some time in the distant past, or gradually, piece by piece, rocks of varying sizes had tumbled down the mountain and into the creek bed where I sat.

“If these rocks are continuously breaking off and rolling down the mountain, then the Sawtooths are getting smaller,” I thought. For every rock that comes down, whether it’s the size of a cantaloupe or the Toyota-sized one I sat on, the cliff-like mountains above diminish. It seemed certain that nothing can be done about it. I scanned the pock-marked cliffs above, worried about the fact that my tent was so close to the slide area.

The Bible says God made the mountains. “… His hands formed the dry land.” (1) But is there any purpose in this seemingly random event, this gradual breaking down of the mountains? In searching for an answer we can consider two facts about the mountains.

We have mountains!

First is the fact that mountains exist at all. Scientists say the mountains formed in the distant past as the result of “plate tectonics.” As superheated magma rose up from the earth’s core, gigantic plates of the earth’s crust moved and volcanic activity took place. These massive chunks of plate were forced downward and others upward resulting in… the Sawtooth mountains! “Then God said… ‘let the dry land appear’; and it was so” . (2)


Earth is the only planet in the Solar System that has mountain ranges formed this way. That is because the Earth alone, among the planets, has a molten core making it “live.” Mars, in contrast, is a “dead” planet with no interior heat. There are no known Sawtooth Mountains, Himalayas, or Rockies elsewhere in the solar system, although there are individual volcanic peaks on Mars (now dormant) and elsewhere. One of the things that make the Earth unique are mountain ranges.

If it’s too hot… turn down the thermostat

Secondly, the mountains exist for more than just the view. The affects of weather on the mountains gradually erodes and breaks them down. That causes the landslides that I saw. This process is called weathering. Scientists believe that as these rocks break down, particularly granite and limestone, that they react chemically with the atmosphere. The result is that the greenhouse gas (CO2) levels are affected. The net result is that the crumbling of the Sawtooth Mountains is part of an enormous thermostat system for the Earth. Two University of Washington scientists say, “Weathering of rocks … (such as granite) plays a crucial part in regulating the planetary thermostat… as a planet warms, … weathering on its surface increases… more carbon dioxide is removed, thus causing cooling. Yet as the planet cools, … weathering decreases, and the CO2 content of the atmosphere begins to rise, causing warming to occur.”(3) So every boulder that falls off the Sawtooth Mountains is part of a massive stabilizing effect in keeping the Earth’s temperature conducive to life.

Even something we take for granted like the existence of mountains or rocks falling off cliffs has a purpose in God’s creation. It is awe-inspiring to consider how brilliant God is in all He has made. So sleep tight tonight… but not too close to a mountain, God just might adjust the temperature.



(1) Psalm 95:5, New American Standard Bible (NASB)
(2) Genesis 1:9, New American Standard Bible (NASB)
(3) Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, “Rare Earth,” (New York: Copernicus Books, 2000), 210