FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), the English statesman and scientist, said God has given us two books or volumes to study: the scriptures and the natural realm. To know God, he said, we need both books. The Bible reveals the will of God, but to understand the greatness of the God who has revealed himself in the Bible, we need to be drawn into thoughtful reflection on the infinite power of God, which is seen most clearly in his works.
Along with commands to meditate on God’s words in Scripture, the psalms invite us to ponder the works of God:
“I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate” (Psalm 145:1-5).
Meditating on God’s works would include pondering God’s work in creation, his daily care for all he has made, and his works of redemption that are recounted in the Bible.
God’s Handiwork on Display
On a clear day, the white ice fields and glaciers of coastal Alaska seem endless as you gaze out the window of an airplane heading from Seattle to Anchorage. Up close, the blue and green colors of the ice sparkle as huge chunks of ice calve off the end of the glacier and crash into the sea. The beauty of glaciers and their power to carve channels through mountains is impressive. But you can look at all that beauty and power, be impressed, and still miss something significant.
In the summer of 1881, the American naturalist, John Muir spent three months exploring and mapping what is now Glacier Bay. His traveling companion was Samuel Young, a Presbyterian missionary. Muir was a Christian. He saw God’s glory, power and majesty everywhere in the natural realm, and his delight in God is refreshing (his account is available in a book entitled Travels in Alaska).
After an exhilarating day exploring a glacier, Muir wrote that he came down the mountain, “rejoicing in the possession of so blessed a day, and feeling that in very foundational truth we had been in one of God’s own temples and had seen him and heard him working and preaching like a man.” He described an unusual display of Northern Lights as the Word of God in “majestic hieroglyphics blazoned along the sky.”
When Muir explored glaciers, he saw more than massive rivers of ice. He described a glacier as a window into God’s ongoing work of creation: Valleys are being carved for new rivers, basins are being hollowed out for lakes, soil that will feed new forests is being ground by the slow moving ice, and the silt that flows out to the ocean is slowly built into beautiful new mountains and landscapes that God has long planned.
To see the world this way, to know that the God who created such majesty and beauty is still at work in what we see around us should move us to doxology – to praising God. God tells us about his power and glory in the majesty of the world around us clearly and powerfully. And it’s on display daily.
Muir’s advice to his missionary friend is also good advice for us today:
“Keep close to Nature’s heart, yourself; and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean from the earth-stains of this sordid, gold-seeking crowd in God’s pure air. It will help you in your efforts to bring to these men something better than gold. Don’t lose your freedom and your love of the Earth as God made it.”
That’s good advice. Get outside. Open your eyes and look at what God has made. Consider the wisdom and power required to make the things you see in the heavens and in the world around you. If the world God has made is magnificent and beautiful, what must the Creator be like?
A scientist by the name of Charles Misner, a specialist in general relativity theory, said:
“I do see the design of the universe as essentially a religious question. That is, one should have some kind of respect and awe for the whole business… It’s very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religion, although he strikes me as a basically very religious man. He must have looked at what the preachers said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that religions he’d run across did not have proper respect…for the author of the universe” (John Piper, Think, p.194).
What Einstein didn’t know
Misner could be right, but his critique may not be a completely fair assessment of the God presented by Christians or of Einstein’s religious leanings. Einstein’s religion, according to Einstein, was “a knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.”
His comprehension of the infinite vastness of space created a deep sense of wonder and awe. He couldn’t explain how the universe began, how it was organized so perfectly, or why it was so beautiful. Through his understanding of math and his observations of the planets and stars and galaxies through telescopes, Einstein knew something of the vastness of space and the order and design was impossible to deny. It filled him with wonder and awe. His sense of amazement felt like a kind of devotion.
But if you are amazed at something beautiful and want to express praise, to whom do you direct those feelings and expressions of adoration? Einstein didn’t know.
He sometimes spoke of God in ways that resonate with Christians. For example:
“We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.”
It’s as if he could sense the presence and power of God, but was unable to take the next step and acknowledge the reality and existence of the God of the Bible:
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
He said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
In his attempts to appreciate the greatness and majesty of God that he could see in creation, Einstein actually made God small by limiting him and refusing to believe that God is a person who wants to be known. If there is a God who spoke and called the universe into being, he would have to be greater than the universe he made, and the universe appears to be infinite. But, he thought, how could a God of that kind of vastness and power be knowable? And why would a God like that care about one little planet or one particular species on that planet or one little person on that planet?
We would do well to ponder the vastness of the universe, like Einstein did. We have Hubble Telescope pictures and information about distant galaxies that he never saw through his telescopes. We would do well to feel the sense of mystery he felt when he thought about the kind of power it would take to make something so infinitely vast and fill it with planets and stars. Maybe we do need a greater respect for the author of the universe.
Is God too big and majestic to know me?
At the same time, we should ponder the mystery of God’s loving care for human beings. It’s not an either/or thing. The God we worship is infinitely powerful, gloriously majestic, and at the same time, personal and knowable.
“To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? Says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see; who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing” (Isaiah 40:25-26).
God himself encourages us to ponder the universe when we need a sense of the greatness of God.
But He goes on to say, “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God’?” (Isaiah 40:27).
There it is. The God who made and sustains the universe is fully aware of what’s going on in our lives. He cares about people like us. He is big enough to create and sustain the entire universe. But he’s not so busy running the universe that he can’t stoop to care for one tiny planet in a remote solar system. And this majestic God, who made all that exists, is the one who makes himself known to us in Jesus Christ and invites us into relationship with himself.
Now that is something to ponder.
How would a greater awareness of the world around you move you to respond to God? If our talk about God does not stir up a deeper sense of wonder and awe and reverence and respect for God, something is wrong. And if our prayers do not have some sense of wonder and awe and respect and reverence for the greatness and majesty of God, how aware are we of who God is?
In the last chapter, we looked at meditation on the words of God in Scripture. As someone who has been delivered from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, God’s Word increasingly becomes a delight because it reveals God. You can’t love someone you don’t know. God wants you to know him. He has made Jesus known to you, he has made himself known to you through the written testimony of the Bible. To meditate on God’s Word is to ponder what God has said in Scripture so as to get the truth into your heart, so you will delight in Christ and be moved to deeper love for Christ.
Meditate on God’s works
But the psalms also encourage us to meditate on God’s works.
What you find repeatedly in the psalms is a sense of wonder and delight in the majesty of God stirred up by a due consideration or meditation on the works of God. And if the psalms are going to teach us something about prayer, it would be good for us to pay attention to this.
“I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.
“One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
“The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
“All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
“[The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.]
“The LORD upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The LORD is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. The LORD preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
“My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever” (Psalm 145).
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place” (Psalm 8:3).
On the Hubble Telescope website there is a link to the “Hubble Deep Field.” Astronomers saw what looked like a dark space in the heavens, empty of stars. With the Hubble Telescope, they were able to focus on that dark area and expose film for thirty to forty minutes. What they found astounded them. What seemed to be an empty, dark spot was actually filled with distant spinning galaxies. Their conclusion is that there is no empty space. No matter which direction they focus telescopes, there are stars and planets. Some are just so far away that they appear to our eyes, even through telescopes, as empty, dark spaces.
Our vast galaxy
Light travels at the speed of 5.87 trillion miles a year. The galaxy of which our solar system is a part is about 100,000 light-years in diameter – about 587 thousand trillion miles. It is one of about a million such galaxies in the optical range of our most powerful telescopes. In our galaxy there are about 100 billion stars. The sun around which our planet travels is just one of the many stars in our galaxy – a modest little star burning at about 6,000 degrees centigrade on the surface and traveling in an orbit at 155 miles per second, which means it will take about 200 million years to compete one revolution around the galaxy. And our galaxy is one of millions. How do you begin to comprehend those kinds of complexities or the vastness of the universe?
Considering some of the pictures we have received from the Hubble Telescope, Dallas Willard wrote:
“A short while ago the Hubble Space Telescope gave us pictures of the Eagle Nebula, showing clouds of gas and microscopic dust reaching six trillion miles from top to bottom. Hundreds of stars were emerging here and there in it, hotter and larger than our sun… Human beings can lose themselves in card games or electric trains and think they are fortunate. But to God there is available… ‘Towering clouds of gases trillions of miles high, backlit by nuclear fires in newly forming stars, galaxies cartwheeling into collision and sending explosive shock waves boiling through millions of light years of time and space.’ These things are all before him, along with numberless unfolding rosebuds, souls, and songs – and immeasurably more of which we know nothing” (The Divine Conspiracy, p. 63-64).
Think of it: the God who made all this and holds it together moment by moment, is the God who has revealed himself as a loving and personal God who wants a relationship with you. He upholds the universe, but he also cares about you.
God’s Works of Redemption
“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in the all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
“You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” (Psalm 8).
If God is infinitely powerful, which he would have to be to uphold the universe, and if God could speak and call into being all that exists, he would have to be greater than the universe he created. The universe appears to be infinite: it has no end.
Pondering that vastness, we feel small. Why would a God like that want to know us? Why would he care about our lives and concerns? For reasons we will never comprehend, God chose to make human beings in his own image and likeness because he wanted to lavish love on us. He made us for a relationship with himself. It’s mind boggling, but he wants us to know him and delight in him.
We who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, who have been drawn into a relationship with the living God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things should be the most awed by the majesty and grandeur and greatness of God. We believe that the God who made all that exists is knowable and personal. He has demonstrated clearly in his works of redemption (recounted in the whole Bible) that he wants a relationship with us – a Father-child relationship of love.
“Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever…to him who does great wonders…to him who by understanding made the heavens…to him who spread out the earth above the waters” (Psalm 136:1,5,6).
Those are God’s works of creation. But the psalm goes on:
“…to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt…and brought Israel out from among them” (Psalm 136:10).
Our Redeemer
From pondering God’s works of creation with a sense of wonder and awe, the psalm moves to God’s works of redemption. This infinitely wise and powerful God, who by understanding made the heavens and all that fills the heavens, this God who made the majestic planet on which we live, is the God who cares about human beings and moved in time and history to redeem a people from this fallen, sin-distorted world.
When the psalms talk about God’s wonderful works, are they talking about marveling at the things God has made, or are they talking about the specific ways God acted on behalf of Israel? I think both are in view. We can praise God for his works in creation and praise him for his amazing display of love, power, mercy, patience and goodness in the way he has worked through the centuries as he has called and redeemed a people for his own glory.
“Give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good…O that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.” (Psalm 107:1,31).
Just to be clear: nature alone will not lead you to the truth about God. You can ponder the majesty of the world around you and not come to a deep understanding of who God is. That’s why God gave us two books, as Francis Bacon put it. Ultimately, God has made himself known most clearly – he has spoken most clearly – in his Son, Jesus. If you really want to know what God is like, you need to ponder God’s redeeming work that culminated in the cross of Christ. That is where you see the greatest display of God’s wisdom, goodness, mercy and love. This is where you see God’s condescending, tender mercy and his power to save.
Why did Jesus go to the cross? If the problems in our world could be solved by more education, better scientific methods, or greater advancements in technology, there would have been no need for God to send his Son into the world to suffer and die as a man. Our greatest problem is our alienation from God. Sin has brought ruin into the world in every dimension. Sin has distorted everything. So now we see beauty and majesty but live with brokenness and sadness. We live with a sense that things are not the way they should be.
Ponder God’s works of redemption. God has made it clear: things are not the way they once were. But things are not now as they will be. God’s work of redemption will bring about the restoration of this world when God is ready. Redemption is heading to a final, eternal glory. You find a longing for that eternal glory in your heart. God put it there. And it is by pondering the majesty of creation and the wonder of God’s redeeming love that you put everything in proper perspective.
God’s Works of Providence
God’s works also include what theologians call his providence. God is holy, wise and powerful in the way he preserves and governs all the creatures he has made. You can ponder the way God has taken care of you through the days of life he has given you.
“Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the great waters; they saw the deeds of the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.
“They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their evil plight; they reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits end. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.
“He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders” (Psalm 107:23-32).
Don’t you wonder if the disciples of Jesus who saw him speak to the wind and waves and calm a storm at sea thought about this psalm and made the connection that Jesus did what only God can do? He spoke, and the wind stopped and the water grew glassy calm — instantly. Their question was: “Who is this that the wind and waves obey him?” You know the answer: He is the God described in Psalm 107.
How have you seen God’s personal, fatherly care in your life? How have you seen the reality of God’s works of providence? How have you seen God’s goodness in your life? Can you tell him about it? Praise and thank him for his goodness?
“You have experienced the goodness of God every day of your life. Has this experience led you to repentance and faith in Christ? …Every meal, every pleasure, every possession, every bit of sun, every night’s sleep, every moment of health and safety, everything else that sustains and enriches life, is a divine gift. And how abundant those gifts are.” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 147).
Where do you have a hard time seeing goodness in what God has allowed? How would pondering God’s works among his people in the past encourage you to trust him?
If God knows each star and planet by name (and there are billions of them) why should you think that God doesn’t know what’s going on in your life, or that he is not capable of taking care of your needs? If God preserves the natural order daily, can you trust him to take care of you and of your family?
“Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works” (Psalm 119:27).
What does all this have to do with prayer?
C.S. Lewis wrote:
“Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility [our senses – we experience the world through taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound]…But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them ‘bad pleasures’ I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean ‘pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.’ It is the stealing of the apples that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory…I have tried since…to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I meant something different…Gratitude exclaims, very properly, ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says, ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations (flashes of light) are like this.’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun… If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labor.”
Lewis is asking, if the short, sparkling glimpses we get of the beauty of God in the things he has made are wonderful, how much more beautiful and wonderful must God himself be? Lewis’ advice is to make every pleasure a channel of adoration. Train yourself to thank and praise God for every beautiful thing you see, every pleasant taste you experience, and every beautiful sound you hear. Not only can you say, ‘How kind of you to let me experience this.’ But you can say, ‘How awesome and beautiful you must be to have made something this exquisite’.”
As you do that, pondering God’s works leads to prayers of adoration.
Your very personal God
God is not the unknowable God of Spinoza and Einstein, a God who orders and creates but remains impersonal, distant and uncaring. He has drawn near to us in Jesus. He has drawn us to himself tenderly, with fatherly affection.
“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” (Psalm 8)
Contemplating the majesty of God’s world is like priming the pump. It gets you thinking about the greatness of God.
Ponder also the way God has provided for you and sustained your life. How has he worked in your life to bring you to the place where you are now? How have you seen his goodness in providence?
And ponder the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Think deeply about Jesus humbling himself, setting aside his rights as Lord and King and Creator to take on humanity – to become one of us in order to save. Think of this infinite God being willing to suffer in order to rescue creatures. Think of God’s redeeming love for you in Christ.
Then tell him what you think: “If what you made is this beautiful, how much more beautiful must you be? If you’re able to sustain all these ecosystems, to provide for the fish, the birds, the animals, forgive me for doubting your ability to take care of me. Forgive me for being filled with so much worry or with anger about the way I think (wrongly) you’re not taking care of me.”