There is a God

I’ve been working my way through the book The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel. I’ve tried to read The Case for Christ a few times but always got bogged down with such scientific language, big words, long sentences, etc. I picked this one up and was immediately intrigued, maybe because he breaks down his “case” into different types of evidence – cosmology, physics, astronomy, biochemistry, biology, and consciousness – and a few of these topics really interest me. So, slowly but surely, I’ve been plugging away at it – and I’ve learned a whole lot.

I just finished the chapter called “Evidence for Astronomy: The Privileged Planet.” Wow. Things have been so fine-tuned for life to be possible on our planet that I can’t understand how people don’t believe in a Creator! Then today I heard a song on the radio that I’ve heard before but the lyrics really caught me this time. It’s called “There is a God”, by the group 33 Miles:

There’s a beauty to the dawn, a rhythm to the rain

A silence in the soul that I just can’t explain

There’s a breath of life I breathe, a beating i my heart

A magnificence, a scary sense of what lies past the stars

Beyond what we can see behind the mystery

I know that it could only be

There is a God; this is the proof

That all around the evidence is speaking the truth

From the center of my soul to the edge of the universe

Creation is crying out believe it or not

There is a God

There’s a debt that has been paid, a grace that I’ve been shown

A hope that I’ve been given that I have never known

There’s a love that conquers darkness a piece of life in me

There’s a life that’s not just here and now but for eternity

Beyond what we can see behind the mystery

I know that it could only be that

There is a God; this is the proof

That all around the evidence is speaking the truth

From the center of my soul to the edge of the universe

Creation is crying out believe it or not

There is a God

I believe it; I believe it

There is a God

I can feel it; I can feel it

There is a God

And the more I find the less I need to see

I’ve never been so sure, so sure of anything

Proof, evidence, mystery, universe… it’s totally what I’ve been reading about!

I am just so amazed at how God has created our world so perfectly. So many minute details have to be in place for life to be possible. Earth is positioned in the solar system in a place called the Circumstellar Habitable Zone, which is the region around a star where you can have liquid water on the surface of a planet. Closer to the sun, the water would evaporate. Farther, it would freeze. We also have a nearly perfect circular orbit around the sun, anything more elliptical would have dangerous temperature variations.

The position of our solar system in the Milky Way galaxy is amazing. First, a spiral galaxy’s “arms” are very dangerous, with lots of stars forming and others blowing up. And the nucleus of the spiral has a giant black hole. Too far from the nucleus and the heavy elements needed to form Earth-like planets aren’t abundant enough.

So here we are. In the safe zone between spiral arms, not too close but not too far from the center.

And then there’s the whole dimension of evidence that suggests the world was created so we could have the adventure of exploring it – take a solar eclipse for example. A total eclipse is possible because the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but also 400 times further away. It creates a perfect match! And while solar eclipses are amazing to experience, they have also taught scientists about scientific discoveries and the nature of stars.

I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what all this one chapter in this book gives as evidence for a Creator. I found myself picturing our Earth (in the small habitable zone!) as a tiny part of the Milky Way galaxy (in the safe zone!) as a tiny part of a big, black universe. God is so big, and He put things together so perfectly… I love the last paragraph of the chapter:

“If God so precisely and carefully and lovingly and amazingly constructed a mind-boggling habitat for his creatures, then it would be natural for him to want them to explore it, to measure it, to investigate it, to appreciate it, to be inspired by it – and ultimately, and most importantly, to find him through it.”

There IS a God – and so much evidence for him!