Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

I was sifting through photos last night in a project I am doing. I came across an old travel journal I kept from my first overseas journey (thanks mom and dad!). My High School graduation present was a trip to London with my classmates, and it was also my first plane ride. I was 17 and this was 31 years ago.

I grew up in a fairly secular home and I had no formal or consistent training or exposure to God. People often ask me, now that I am a Christian, "What about the people who have never heard about Jesus? Isn't it vindictive for God to judge them?" There are many answers to that, but the answer I want to focus on involves God's creation and the scripture following:

Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities; his eternal power and divine nature; have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

I wrote a series of essays at The End Time called "Consider Beauty" which deals with people who has open eyes and an open heart can find God in the creation He made, because His glory is not only in the Son as written in the Scriptures. God reveals His glory in the world and in the heavens, too. So in this travel journal I discovered last night in my photos bin, I had written:

"Plane, 2:00 am. Sunrise...beautiful. I'm watching one side of the world wake up while the other side is still sleeping. It is all pink and blue, and the clouds are like cotton. The stewardess just asked us to lower our shades, because the sun will be up soon and some would like to sleep. I'm not going to miss this for all the gold on earth! This is God's handiwork. I'm not turning down an offering from God."

Later: "I've decided this is heaven. When I die, I want to spend eternity here. Nothing but God could have made this. This is another world."

The bible says that the Holy Spirit draws a person before they even understand the Word. "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:44). Rev. Stanley L. Derickson said, "Since God revealed Himself to man in the creation and man is held accountable for that revelation, then there must be some possibility of the man responding to that creation, else God is holding him responsible for something which he cannot act upon." source. God's general revelation of Himself in the heavens and in the world communicates enough truth about God to make a man responsible to seek God further, with the goal hopefully ending in salvation.

James 4:8 "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." Do you see God in this short video? It is astounding to see God's handiwork through the perspective of deep space peeks from Hubble. I don't agree with the narrator when he says that it's almost absurd that upon seeing this picture that we are alone in the universe." But I do pray that if you glimpse God's glory in the heavens or here on earth that you will allow the Holy Spirit to draw you ever closer to God and your own eternity with Him.

1 comment:

peachyplum said...

This video is good (with the sound off!)God is awesome and shows the work of the Creator (God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit).