Something for nothing
This week's Bible study is on Hebrews 11:3:
It's a short one this week. Paul is writing to his fellow Jewish converts about faith. There's a whole bunch of stuff about faith in that chapter, but this is the verse that caught me. It's kind of mind-blowing.
We understand on an abstract level that the universe was formed at God's command. Any "spiritual" person would nod knowingly and claim that they believed it. But look at how the universe formed! Look at all we have around us. Looking backwards in time, it's clear how it all formed and where stuff came from, but what about looking forward in time? We have no idea! All we have are fuzzy guesses based on bad math and prior experience.
Look at a squash plant, for instance. Knowing about farming, and having seen squash and carved pumpkins and so on, we can look at a squash plant and go "oh yeah, that came from this little seed, and passed through these stages before it got to where it is." But how did the seed turn into the plant? It's this little thing! There's no room in that seed for that whole plant, and there's definitely no room in that seed for the fruit and the seeds inside the fruit. How did it happen? Everything that seed produced was pulled out of the soil it grew in and the water it drank. If someone gave you a bucket of dirt and a seed, could you produce a replica of the squash plant without planting it?
What if you'd never seen a squash plant before? What if you were one of the first humans ever to see the seed? If you were shown ten plants in a garden, could you have told which one it came from? Or even more amazingly, if you'd never seen a plant grow from a seed before, could you have even predicted what would happen if you buried it in the ground? It looks like a little chip of wood. It's useless! Nobody's going to guess that a giant plant is going to come from it, or that giant fruits are going to appear on that plant. Even if you planted it, all you get at first is a leaf or two that don't look anything like the leaves on the plant you want.
Or how about this? Given a freshly dug patch of ground, who can predict what weeds will grow where, just by looking at the dirt? Nobody has any idea. We have to wait for them to start growing to know that. Looking at a handful of seeds from a plant, can anyone predict which will grow and which are sterile? Nobody knows that! We can predict based on math how many will grow, but we can't tell which ones.
Just like the plant drags everything it needs out of the soil and its surroundings without us noticing anything missing, God's creation creates something visible from what was invisible. There's nothing at first, then there's nothing that looks like what we're looking for, then there's something that's close but isn't it, and then there's our thing. Apart from him telling us what's going to happen, we have no idea. We can't guess it.
Realizing that can increase our faith. If we ask for something and don't see it, we can realize that's normal in God's creation to not be able to see it. When you encounter something new, you don't typically recognize it until it's there. All the times before that? You have no idea. So, not seeing what it is we've prayed for doesn't mean it's not going to happen. It could be growing right in front of you and you'd never guess it. If you feel like God will answer your prayers, but you don't see it, then rest assured that his creation could be growing right now without you knowing it until you see it.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
It's a short one this week. Paul is writing to his fellow Jewish converts about faith. There's a whole bunch of stuff about faith in that chapter, but this is the verse that caught me. It's kind of mind-blowing.
We understand on an abstract level that the universe was formed at God's command. Any "spiritual" person would nod knowingly and claim that they believed it. But look at how the universe formed! Look at all we have around us. Looking backwards in time, it's clear how it all formed and where stuff came from, but what about looking forward in time? We have no idea! All we have are fuzzy guesses based on bad math and prior experience.
Look at a squash plant, for instance. Knowing about farming, and having seen squash and carved pumpkins and so on, we can look at a squash plant and go "oh yeah, that came from this little seed, and passed through these stages before it got to where it is." But how did the seed turn into the plant? It's this little thing! There's no room in that seed for that whole plant, and there's definitely no room in that seed for the fruit and the seeds inside the fruit. How did it happen? Everything that seed produced was pulled out of the soil it grew in and the water it drank. If someone gave you a bucket of dirt and a seed, could you produce a replica of the squash plant without planting it?
What if you'd never seen a squash plant before? What if you were one of the first humans ever to see the seed? If you were shown ten plants in a garden, could you have told which one it came from? Or even more amazingly, if you'd never seen a plant grow from a seed before, could you have even predicted what would happen if you buried it in the ground? It looks like a little chip of wood. It's useless! Nobody's going to guess that a giant plant is going to come from it, or that giant fruits are going to appear on that plant. Even if you planted it, all you get at first is a leaf or two that don't look anything like the leaves on the plant you want.
Or how about this? Given a freshly dug patch of ground, who can predict what weeds will grow where, just by looking at the dirt? Nobody has any idea. We have to wait for them to start growing to know that. Looking at a handful of seeds from a plant, can anyone predict which will grow and which are sterile? Nobody knows that! We can predict based on math how many will grow, but we can't tell which ones.
Just like the plant drags everything it needs out of the soil and its surroundings without us noticing anything missing, God's creation creates something visible from what was invisible. There's nothing at first, then there's nothing that looks like what we're looking for, then there's something that's close but isn't it, and then there's our thing. Apart from him telling us what's going to happen, we have no idea. We can't guess it.
Realizing that can increase our faith. If we ask for something and don't see it, we can realize that's normal in God's creation to not be able to see it. When you encounter something new, you don't typically recognize it until it's there. All the times before that? You have no idea. So, not seeing what it is we've prayed for doesn't mean it's not going to happen. It could be growing right in front of you and you'd never guess it. If you feel like God will answer your prayers, but you don't see it, then rest assured that his creation could be growing right now without you knowing it until you see it.
Comments
Post a Comment