What a crazy few days of weather in East Tennessee! Two days ago I was huddled in a hallway with high schoolers during a tornado warning while the rain poured and the winds howled, and this morning I ran through quiet flurries as I gazed at the beautiful snow-capped mountains in the distance. The weather can change so quickly. While we can sometimes predict it, we have absolutely no control over it.
As I ran in the snow this morning, I couldn’t help but recall the words from my Bible reading moments earlier: “God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend. For to the snow he says, ‘Fall on the earth,’ likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour” (Job 37:5-6). He manages the “storehouses of the snow” (38:22), “the torrents of rain” (38:25), and every other natural phenomenon we can observe - as well as the ones in “the desert in which there is no man” (38:26). He is sovereign over it all.
John Calvin called this world a “dazzling theater” that displays God’s glory. He also said that “wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory.” We are surrounded by the glory of God every second of every day. Every single observation we make in this world is an opportunity to behold that glory. But so many times we miss it. As John Piper laments, “The world and even thousands of Christians give no praise and thanks to God for millions of daily, life-sustaining providences because they do not see the world as the theater of God’s wonders. They see it as a vast machine running on mindless natural laws.”
Every single observation we make in this world is an opportunity to behold the glory of God. But so many times we miss it.
As a high school science teacher, it’s my job to study and teach natural laws, but each and every natural law provides an opportunity to lift my own eyes and direct the gaze of others to the Author and Sustainer of those natural laws. God certainly “does great things that we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5), but it’s a great privilege to spend our lives growing in the knowledge of such incomprehensible things. Let’s turn our attention to the glorious wonders of the “dazzling theater” and praise the one who is responsible for it all.
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