Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Have you ever found yourself questioning God, faith or his church? In light of natural disasters, disease, famine, personal loss and strife that wreck our world and show us daily that this world is not our own, have you ever been tempted to turn away from the church and conclude a loving god can’t be behind this? That He would actually relinquish control of the gearworks of this life and leave us helpless? The truth is: He hasn’t left us to fend for ourselves. Thinkers, writers and scientists — C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel and former philosophy professor Antony Flew to name a few — have had similar fatalistic thoughts about the human condition, yet in the end, thinker after thinker has eventually concluded that an intelligent designer must be behind the creation of the universe.
Did you know that a shocking number of elements exist in the universe that if increased or decreased by a minute fraction, life on Earth would not be possible? Did you know that our planet revolves on an orbital tight rope, that if it was skewed one way or the other by a fraction, we would not exist.
Even for those who adopt the common scientific explanation for the universes existence, the math is inextricable.
Dr. Stephen Hawking has calculated that if the rate of the universe’s expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed into a fireball. — quote from Strobel’s, “The Case for Faith”
And as nanoscientist James Tour of Rice University added in Strobel’s book:
“Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God.”
Astrophysicist and priest George Coyne put it this way: “Nothing we learn about the universe threatens our faith. It only enriches it.”
Thus, God uniquely crafted, not only the world to facilitate perfect conditions to sustain His creation, but He uniquely crafted us. But for what purpose? To be salt and light to a world that has already fallen under the thinly veiled spell that dictates that people attempt to find satisfaction in wealth, love and happiness through whatever means necessary. In the end, we know that this leads to the ultimate path of spiritual emptiness — no better off at the conclusion of one’s life than at the beginning, still groping in the dark after some unfulfilled need that has remained unquenched despite having loved ones, friends, money or careers.
Without Christ in our lives, and because of man’s fall and subsequent spiritual tailspin, this is our unfortunate lot: a life of shallowness. For, what purpose can one outside of Christ hope for? But with Christ, there is a new song. With Christ: a new purpose. With Christ: a new hope. With Christ: a brand new, glorified creation, unmarred and shining in a dark world that hungers for it.
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
application
Read the entire passage of Ephesians 2:1-10. Today, ask yourself if you have genuinely sought God’s will and purpose for your life. Indeed, asking for God’s will to be shown and carried out in your life is not necessarily a comforting proposition, but achieving your own aspirations and dreams pales in comparison to the kind of fulfillment you will receive by following God’s design for your life. He knows you intimately and even when you were in the womb, long before your parents came to know and love you, he already did. Pray that God would work in you to more fully become like Christ and be the light in a world that so desperately needs Him.