The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, the most powerful radio receiver in the world, is a 27-radio telescope system mounted on railroad tracks in a Y-shaped array near Socorro, New Mexico. It's purpose is to hear from space as the telescope provides high clarity images composed from radio signals. The world is listening and watching.
All ears are tuned toward the heavens. What are they hearing and seeing? The heavens declare the glory of God and his handiwork. Whether they study the heavens or the microbes, scientists study God's glorious creation. To study God himself, though, and what he has already communicated to us in His Word, that, dear one, is the far greater endeavor.
This documentary is sure to affirm and increase your faith in the Master Creator. Our world is filled with beauty, order and design, and the animals themselves give evidence that it couldn't have happened by random chance. They all show purpose in design, not happenstance.
We often preview videos on Amazon or Netflix that we think might be worthwhile for our grandchildren to watch when they come to visit for a week or so. This is definitely a keeper, one for the entire family. It's light-hearted, yet enlightening and filled with fascinating facts. If you click on the image, you can watch the trailer.
There are also interesting stories throughout the documentary of how some of the highlighted animals helped to change the course of American history. Bees thwarted a British attack in the American Revolution. Camels were brought the to U.S. during the Spanish-American War to cross the American desert.
Oh, yes, "The Song".... we wondered about that throughout the video. It's saved until the last. Beautiful music to the Master Designer's ear.
The vastness of God's creation is beyond man's comprehension, yet to see the marvels that man has been able to see technologically points undeniably to the Great Designer.
We watched Mysteries of the Unseen World this evening, a National Geographic documentary that shows a world of things that our normal vision cannot see. It gives believers just a glimpse of what God might allow us to see and know when we come into His presence after life on this earth. All Heaven sings His praises, and this movie shows plenty of reason to do just that.
True believers see God's hand where others may not. Whether or not you believe God created the immenseness and minuteness of the universe, I think you'd enjoy the photography and science behind this documentary. We watched it on Netflix, but it's also available through Amazon. You can watch the Netflix trailer here.
Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Last evening we watched Crimson Wing, a nature documentary
by Disneynature. The photography and scenery were spectacular, and I learned a
great many things about hundreds of thousands of flamingos that arrive each
year at Lake Natron, Tanzania in East Africa and who leave after their
fledglings are able to follow.
In spite of the documentary’s evolutionary perspective and
survival of the fittest depictions, I watched in awe at how God created these
beautiful birds and the instincts he placed within them. Viewing it from a
creation perspective, it takes on a beauty that far transcends that of the
scenery and photography.
The documentary was interesting, but storylines in nature
documentaries are always questionable when the writers attempt to attribute
human thought and characteristics to animals and supposedly follow the life of
single animal throughout the movie.That type of appeal doesn’t persuade me.
The chicks were cute, though, and I rooted for their
survival. Most of them did survive, although death scenes from predators were
too often and too long, so I wouldn’t recommend the movie for children. I kept my head
in the sofa pillow and my ears covered off and on throughout the movie. Death
happens, but dwelling on the details of the struggle isn’t enriching.
If you click on the picture, the link will take you to the
trailer. View it though the eyes of creation and stand in awe of the magnificence
of God.
We began the American Government class today for some high school home schoolers at our church. My Beloved and I are co-teaching, and I think I'm going to enjoy the term! I'm doing the planning and assignments, and he's doing the lecture part. We're meeting for a 2-hour class once a week, and the students have out-of-class work to do independently the remainder of the days. This is a great way to get ready for college course work and independent study. I've taught this course a couple of other times, but with My Beloved now retired, this is the first time we'll have the opportunity to teach it together. He has a much broader grasp of government than I do (I don't really even like to watch the news), and besides that, I just like to be in his class! We have a little website for the class, if you'd like to peek in.
One of the topics of discussion today was man's creation/dominion mandate, that God intends for man to subdue and rule over the earth. We showed a brief 10-minute excerpt from Into the Amazon: One Lost World, 30 Men, Seven Mysteries, a collection of 4 DVDs published by Vision Forum. Doug Phillips builds the case of the dominion mandate, that the Amazon awaits man's dominion over it, to harness it for the good of man.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. ~ Genesis 1:28
This is the antithesis of today's environmental determinism that replaces the worship of the creator with the worship of the creation. I've heard it couched in terms like "nature reclaiming the earth." This belief holds that man is the intruder into nature. But that's not biblical thinking. Nature as we know it is part of the Fall as described in Genesis 3.
... cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you (v. 17-18).
The thorns and thistles and weeds that proliferate and would invade every inch of ground without man's intervention are indicative of the defective state of nature after the Fall. Can you imagine what nature would have been like before the Fall?! Still, so much of it is absolutely beautiful--the breathtaking scenes of Into the Amazon are just a glimpse of the grandeur of nature as God originally intended it to be. (BTW, the scenery alone is worth watching the DVDs!) We can hardly imagine what nature will be like on the new earth!
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. ~ 2 Peter 2:13
The Amazon itself is a controversial place. Those who worship the creation subjugate themselves to the Amazon. Those who worship the Creator seek to fulfill God's mandate to subdue the Amazon.
Antithesis of belief. Antithesis of sovereignty. Antithesis of worship.
Sharing some devotional reading with you today from Knowing God Through the Year.
Right from the start, the Bible's story is told in such a way as to impress on us the twin truths that the God to whom we are being introduced is both personal and majestic. Genesis reveals the personal nature of God expressed in vivid terms. He deliberates with himself, saying, "Let us..." (Genesis 1:26). He brings the animals to Adam to see what Adam will call them (2:19). He walks in the garden calling to Adam (3:8-9). He asks people questions (4:9). He comes down from heaven in order to find out what his creatures are doing (11:5). He is so grieved by human wickedness that he repents of making them (6:6-7). Representations of God like these show us that God is not a mere cosmic principle, impersonal and indifferent. Rather, he is a living Person, thinking, feeling, active, approving of good, disapproving of evil, interested in his creatures all the time.
~ J.I. Packer
And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east,
and there he put the man whom he had formed.
And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree
that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
The tree of life was in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The LORD God took the man
and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying,
"You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him a helper fit for him."
Genesis 2:8-9, 15-18
Painting ~ The Earthly Paradise, 1607-1608, Jan Brueghel 1568-1625
Went to a baby shower this evening and was reminded of the awesome privilege as a woman to participate in God's ongoing act of creation. Setting this means of creating life in motion in Genesis 1, God has chosen to create a brand new human being through the miracle of human birth!
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, " Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." ... and God saw everything that he had made and it was very good.
All God does is very good, and the way he does it is very good. God does all things for his glory and our good. One of the ways he has chosen for us to glorify him is through his plan of creating new children, to magnify and exalt the wonder of it all. For his glory, and for our good.
"And God blessed them." Children are God's blessings to us. They are his gift to us. Every good and perfect gift comes from him (James 1:17). I recently heard a new father remark that he had no idea being a daddy would be so awesome. And a new mother agreed that a baby opens up a completely new dimension to life. Not that it's an easy gift to have responsibility for, but one that we can glorify God through. One of God's good and perfect gifts, blessing us in ways we would not know otherwise. I'm so thankful to have participated.
A third little blessing coming soon to this young mother we honored this evening. God does all things well.
Painting ~ The Crib, George Goodwin Kilburne 1839-1924
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