Category: Creation

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An Important Question (pt. 2)

Continued from last week, we’re getting pretty close to the requirement of faith.

To acknowledge that 356 prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Jesus is one thing. But to say that a man – a human being – is God? That’s a tough pill to swallow! But let’s continue.

Since 356 prophecies were fulfilled in one person, we now have to ask the question: How did all those people (prophets) know what to write? It’s impossible for several people over a span of 1200 years (not including any New Testament writer) to agree with each other in knowing exactly what will happen to a single individual hundreds of years later. There had to be a mastermind to share the information with them.

And that mastermind had to be alive for the duration of human existence so there would be no mistake in telling these people what to write. But no human in the history of the world – including before the flood in Noah’s time – lived longer than 969 years.

This reveals that the existence of the mastermind started before the beginning of the human race and shared knowledge of the future with various people. Since only God can do that, I have no recourse but to accept what the Bible says about him.

John 1:1 – In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Verse 14 tells us that the Word became flesh. Therefore, we know that the Word was Jesus; and Jesus was and is God.

So far I’ve related what the Bible said about God and Jesus, and we know that everything said about them came true. Therefore, since it verifies that Jesus is God, I have no problem believing whatever the Bible authors said about Him.

The Bible says Jesus raised people from the dead. Can God do that? Of course, He can. He created life in the first place; He can certainly restore life.

The Bible says Jesus turned water into wine. Can God do that? Yes, of course. He created vegetation and water out of nothing, so he can change water into fermented grape juice.

The Bible says Jesus died, was buried, and raised from the dead three days later. Can God do that? Again, yes. God created rocks, planets, stars, galaxies, vegetation, animals, and humans – all out of nothing. Therefore, it is no big deal for God to prevent the body that He lived for 33 or so years from decomposing, and to re-inhabit it. Not only that, the guards at the tomb were eye-witnesses, but were paid to lie about it (Matthew 28:11-15).

Now, where were we? Oh, yes …

If humanistic evolution were true, dissolved inorganic rock material would have to be transformed into organic material. That is a physical impossibility. Therefore, it would still require the miraculous power of a Creator – Almighty God. Only God can do the impossible. Therefore, since the Creator would still be necessary, He wouldn’t need billions of years to create and establish life: He could do it within days if he wanted to.

Did the Bible authors tell us that God or Jesus did something They couldn’t do? Did the Bible authors tell us that God or Jesus did something They didn’t do?

No. In fact, the last verse in the Gospel of John says, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books.”

I asked my dad once how that could be true. Dad responded with, “Do you know all that Jesus, as God, did throughout the history of the universe? How did Jesus make rocks? How did he make flowers? How did he make a star? How many stars did he make? How many galaxies did he make? How did he make people? And the questions continue.”

Obviously, I don’t know how many books it would take to record every single thing Jesus/God did throughout the history of the universe, so I will believe the verse. That is faith. Faith is believing what we cannot prove.

There are many detractors – including theologians, scholars, and scientists – who deny the truth in the Bible. There were even people back in the first century who outright lied about Jesus and about what took place. But remember my comment last week: “…to explicitly affirm what God and Jesus actually said and did would require eyewitnesses.” And there were many eyewitnesses who wrote down what they saw and heard.

We serve an amazingly, almighty God who can do anything He can imagine, and He has a great imagination. Looking through a microscope and a telescope reveals the glory of God and the magnificence of His imagination.

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An Important Question (pt. 1)

I enjoyed a question a reader asked because it prompted me to critically and logically think about my faith and my understanding about God.

Question: How do you determine the difference between 1) what God and Jesus actually said and did, versus 2) what the Bible authors merely reported that God and Jesus said and did?

To affirm what God and Jesus said and did would require eyewitnesses. Therefore, I will not start with faith; I’ll start with what many scholars believe to be fact.

Literary scholars of various religious and non-religious persuasions determined that portions of the Old Testament may have been written as early as 3500 BC, and I think they are on the right track. Why do I agree with them?

According to Genesis chapter three, God had personal interaction with Adam. Therefore, Adam learned about the creation events from God, and most likely wrote about it. And since Adam lived well into Methuselah’s lifetime, he passed the knowledge regarding creation and the beginning of human history to Enoch and his son, Methuselah; and they could have started formally documenting the history of mankind. Since Methuselah died about a week before the flood began, he had time to document what Noah was doing.

God gave Noah a 120-year warning that the flood was to happen, so Noah wasn’t in a hurry and would have taken all the writings that Methuselah gave him onto the Ark. Noah and Shem may have added more info to the writings.

Those writings (on clay, parchment, paper, or whatever the medium), were passed down to Abraham and eventually reached Moses. All that information was the basis for the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

The information presented in Genesis 12 through 50 was most likely documented by Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and several others while they were in Egypt, and given to Moses. If the writings started around 3500 BC, and we apply the genealogy given us in the Bible, we can see how the actions and words of God – and of Jesus – were documented by eyewitnesses. It takes many guesses out of the equation.

Add to the equation: the Bible is the oldest history book in the world, and much of it has been verified by archeology and other scientific endeavors.

Hundreds of prophecies have been spoken throughout the OT time frame. A few of the prophecies were spoken by seemingly wild-eyed hermits, while many, if not most, were spoken by kings, priests, farmers, shepherds, merchantmen, and other socially accepted people. Most of them have already come true, such as: approximately 356 prophecies in the OT about the coming Messiah have been fulfilled in Jesus.

Quoting from https://www.learnreligions.com/prophecies-of-jesus-fulfilled-700159, Learn Religions – Old Testament Prophecies of Jesus, we read: “In the book Science Speaks, Peter Stoner and Robert Newman discuss the statistical improbability of one man, whether accidentally or deliberately, fulfilling just eight of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled. The chance of this happening, they say, is 1 in 1017 power.”

10 to the 17th power is 10 with 17 zeros after it. Go figure the number.

But there were not 8 prophecies about Jesus that were fulfilled – there were approximately 356. For this, I don’t know how many zeros would be required, the result equals to an impossibility.

But all that deals only with prophecies about Jesus. There were hundreds of other prophecies throughout the 1200 years of writing Genesis through Malachi. They were about people, politics, events, and they were fulfilled, also. If there is no one who knows everything that will ever happen in the course of mankind, this is a staggering impossibility.

Many of those 356 prophecies that were fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus point to the fact that Jesus would be the Messiah, and others pointed to the fact that Jesus would be God in human form.

Now, switch to what is called the New Testament.

What we call the “Church Age” did not begin until the Day of Pentecost. That’s why we say the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are actually a continuation of the Old Testament. That would change the 1200 years of writing to almost 1600 years. Those four books reveal the life of Jesus and show how Jesus fulfilled many prophecies in the OT.

John, the Gospel writer, was possibly the final Old Testament prophet. Remember, he didn’t die until somewhere around 100 AD – about 60 years after Jesus was crucified. And with everything said about the coming Messiah being fulfilled in Jesus, John informs us in John 1:1 that the Messiah, who had originally been predicted in Genesis 3:15, was and is God.

Let’s continue next week.

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God’s Foresight, Love, and Protection

Several years ago, Carol and I visited Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. We settled in, and decided to get our laundry washed before the rest of the crowd in the Gettysburg RV Campground figured out where the laundry room was. It was dark and we were getting ready to fold the clean clothes when I got sight of the half-moon out the window.

“Precious, wait a minute. I’ve got to get a picture of the moon.” The moon, planets, sun, and stars have intrigued me all my life. I have hundreds of pictures of the moon, many of the sun, and a few of Mars. But my pictures won’t hold a candle to the collection David Cater has. Mr. Cater writes articles on humankind’s astronomical frontier and star-gazing for numerous newspapers, and I greatly enjoy it.

As I walked outside, I thought of his columns.

Outside the laundry room, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I saw two smaller dots: one at the two o’clock position from the moon, and a dimmer dot at the 10:30 position.

Doing a quick check on Google, I discovered what Mr. Cater could have easily told me: the brighter dot was Jupiter, approximately 484 million miles distant at that time, and the dimmer dot was Saturn, approximately 920 million miles from earth at that time. However, the internet isn’t always correct but Mr. Cater would know.

The reports also said that these gas planets wouldn’t reach this position relative to the moon and our visual perspective again for another 20 years.

I went back into the laundry room to keep my promise to my Precious: I helped fold the clothes. But Carol became curious about my excitement, and she stepped outside to peer at the night sky. Several other campers walking by looked up when I was describing these two satellites of the sun and one of the earth, and they became awestruck.

One said, “I never knew we could see other planets without a telescope.”

Another quipped, “How do you know which one is what?” “Look it up on Google.” “Oh, yeah. I should have known that.”

Jupiter is the largest of our 8 (or 9) planets. How big is it? Its diameter is about 87,000 miles, it takes 12 earth-years to orbit the sun, and it might have 79 moons – several of which are larger than our moon. It’s possible that Jupiter has a solid core that is at least 12 times the mass of our earth, but Jupiter as a whole has a mass of about 318 times that of earth. Most of the “atmosphere” is comprised of hydrogen and helium. Since its gravitational pull is powerful, it is a primary protector of the earth by attracting and capturing dangerous comets and asteroids that might imperil the earth.

Saturn circles the sun once every 29 earth years, and has a diameter of about 72,400 miles, but the diameter of its spectacular rings is about 170,000 miles. Saturn is the second-largest planet in our solar system. It probably has a solid core, but we’re not sure of its makeup. It could be rock and iron, ice made of water, ammonia, or helium, or possibly fluid metallic hydrogen. It’s atmosphere is primarily of hydrogen and helium. Saturn is about 95 times the earth’s mass, has 82 known moons with probably many more hiding in the rings. Saturn, also, is a protector of earth due to its gravitational pull.

But with all the admiration and attention we bestow on these two giants that we can see without a telescope, let’s not forget two more protectors. Many of the dangerous astronomical bullets (meteors, asteroids, comets) that escape the gas bullies are caught by the moon. The comets (mostly water ice) that enter our atmosphere evaporate and add to our water supply, and most of the meteorites and asteroids that enter our atmosphere are pulverized and turned to dust. Over all, the earth could be gaining over 30,000 tons of water and dust a year due to these astronomical visitors.

God’s foresight in assembling the solar system amazes me! God created man for fellowship. He redeems fallen man through relationship with Jesus Who died for us but rose from the dead. And He protects humanity so that those who cooperate with Him can fulfill His heavenly plan. God’s foresight, love, and protection reveals what an awesome God we have!

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A Very Good Question

The following is a question from a dear friend, and my response to her.

“In a short and concise answer, why do you believe Christianity is the true/real religion and others are false?”

Joanna, If I give you a “short and concise answer,” it will answer the question but it will not answer your intent. Here is the short and concise answer, and you’ll see what I mean:

Christianity is based on Jesus, and Jesus is truly God. Other religions are based on false gods. Anything false is not true or real. That’s why I believe Christianity is the true/real religion.

Now you see why a short and concise answer will not tell you what you want to know. Therefore, allow me to go a bit further with a fuller, more complex response.

A major scientific principle states: Matter can be neither created [out of nothing] nor destroyed [resulting into nothing]. It can change shape, form, or appearance, but cannot be created or destroyed. But matter exists. The entire universe is made from matter.

Therefore, we must amend the principle like this: Matter can be neither created nor destroyed – except by a force outside time and space. That force must be an uncreated, eternal, thinking Being. And by nature, He must be a creator. A person such as this can only be God. That outside force – God – is the only one who can make or create substance out of absolutely nothing.

Mankind is a compound creation: body and spirit. Man was created to be autonomously animated: he breathes by himself, he moves by himself, and he thinks by himself – he’s a compound miracle. It has been proven throughout human history that, although man can think up ideas, then invent and manufacture things out of processed material found in nature, man cannot create something out of nothing.

Man was created with the innate desire to worship something or someone, but rebellious or highly independent man does not want to be responsible to his Creator. Therefore, although some have chosen to believe there is no God or gods, others have generated gods from their own fanciful imagination.

Man granted these imaginary gods the ability to create themselves. Man granted them personality, spirit, and some supernatural powers, and decided to worship his own invention. However, man-made imaginations cannot answer prayer, but Jesus does answer prayer. Man-made imaginations cannot heal or speak, but Jesus interacts with us in our minds and spirits daily; and He heals. Man-made imaginations cannot guide us, but Jesus guides us in healthy, wholesome decisions.

Joanna, do you understand what I just wrote? It’s true that I learned much of that by studying various subjects. But let me quote my Grandpa Linzey when I asked him a question. You’ll find this on page 14 of my book, Reflections on Faith & History:

The last time I saw my grandfather, Stanford Linzey, he was ninety-six years old. I asked him: “Grandpa, what is the most important thing in life? I want to pass your thought on to my children as part of their family heritage.” Grandpa looked out into the field and over the horizon for a few minutes as I silently waited with eager anticipation. At last he looked toward me and pensively said, “I suppose the most important thing in life is this: everything you need to know is in The Book. You can know a lot of other things, but everything you need to know is in The Book. Study it.”

I deeply cherish those moments with Grandpa, and I have never stopped studying the bible – The Book. However, although everything we need to know for eternal life is in the Bible, I’ve learned a lot more information so that I can effectively fulfill what the Lord has asked me to do – write to inform and teach people.

You must develop your Christian world-view for yourself in order to solidly establish your faith in Jesus Christ and to be able to adequately talk with others about it.

Remember that I’m available to help. But please read my book, Reflections on Faith & History. (Click on the url at the end of this blog.) It won’t take long to read it, you’ll find several other answers you’re looking for, and I gladly await your next question. You ask very good questions. May the Lord bless you, abundantly, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

https://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Faith-History-Bringing-Scripture/dp/1793443599

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Starting From Scratch ……

I read that Carl Sagan, American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences, once said, “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.”

That sums up much of Carl’s worldview. And, indeed, he did believe in a lot of what is only imaginary. Nevertheless, God gifted Carl with a great scientific mind. If you knew Carl and me, you would know that he and I disagree on some major issues, but I admired him.

Another of his statements was, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” That’s quite insightful, and I agree with Carl on that one. But that statement seems to differ with his overall understanding of life – his understanding of the cosmos. Why? Keep reading.

As I said, I agree with the “start-from-scratch” statement, because without the universe, we would have no apples, therefore, no pies.

However, he believed in the hypothetical Big Bang – the concept that all of the cosmos, billions of galaxies and any and all life in them, spontaneously self-created out of an infinitesimally small speck of matter, which, in turn, was created out of nothing – or which might have been a residue of a previous big bang cycle. One scientist in New Mexico told me we might be in the 4th or 5th big bang cycle, but don’t believe it.

Back to Sagan’s apple pie comment.

To make an apple pie, we have to have apples, which requires a tree, which requires a seed. Someone would need to create the seed with life in it, and program into the seed what the tree needed to look like, and how to make both leaves and fruit. We need dirt to plant it in, we need nutrients in the dirt, water to help tree roots dissolve the dirt and absorb the nutrients. It would take a book to describe what the seed had to do, and the impossibility of it happening spontaneously.

We need an atmosphere with the right mix of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases. Someone had to make the gases.

We need a star that emits the correct spectrum of light. The planet needs to be the correct distance from the star. We need a home, called a galaxy, where our star can reside. But we have a problem here. Without a star with gravity to cause gas to condense into a solid ball, the gas from the bang would continue to expand and never condense into a solid. The laws of physics would prevent expanding gas from turning on itself and becoming a solid. Even the astrophysicists don’t know how the first stars formed from expanding gas. Anyone can guess, but hypothetical (unproven) guesses are not scientific.

Oh, yes, we need someone to make a glass or metal container to make the pie in because the big bang couldn’t make them. We need someone to invent and plant all the other ingredients so we can mix them with the apples in the pie and make the crust. So people had to be invented. Someone had to figure out how to design and put together chromosomes and genes, and create deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), ribonucleic acid (RNA) … all at the same time.

But we have to go deeper.

Someone had to figure out how to transform the dissolved rocks into 382,000 kinds of plant life. Someone also had to teach the dissolved rocks how to morph into living gelatinous amoebas, and teach them to eat other dissolved rocks. And someone had to teach the amoebas how to mutate and grow into 2.13 million species of animals.

And all of this had to happen in an exceedingly short period of time. Tossing in a few more million or billion years is imaginative, but it is not scientific and it accomplishes nothing. Organic life forms – whether they evolved or were created – had to happen fully functional within a day.

 I helped build the Boeing 727s, 747s, 757s, and the B-1B. I worked on the space shuttle program. The parts to these machines cannot self-materialize even with all the basic materials – iron, aluminum, titanium, plastic, glass, etc. – already created. And these machines cannot spontaneously self-assemble no matter how many millions of years we tumble their parts together. And the concept of all matter – from an electron to multi-billions of galaxies – self-materializing out of nothing and self-assembling into well-developed solar systems and galaxies, is non-scientific. Believe it you want to, but it is not a matter of science. It is a non-verifiable belief system.

God, the eternal I Am, the eternal Master Mind of the cosmos, created everything from scratch. He’s the only one who can do that. What I mean is, God, who lives outside time and space, is the only one who could create anything and everything out of absolutely nothing.

Back to Carl Sagan’s apple pie comment.

I thank God every time my precious wife makes apple pies (my favorite), pumpkin pies, cookies, Thanksgiving Day meals, and anything else we want to eat. God created life and the universe, and we use and enjoy what God has created.

Keep studying, but understand that God is not only the engineering, creative force in the universe, but He also came in the form of Jesus to rescue us from our sin nature.

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Sleep is Natural Medicine

British writer Aldous Huxley once said, “That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.”

Huxley died in 1963, and had no idea what would deprive us of sleep in the digital age. According to a report of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 1/3 of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep a night, and the CDC says that isn’t enough. Many folks either can’t get to sleep, or think of sleep as wasted time. What actually goes on while we’re lying there? Why are we designed to do nothing for a third of our lifetimes?

The answer: Our bodies are doing housekeeping and neurological work that’s needed to keep us operating properly when we’re awake.

In 1951, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Eugene Aserinsky, wired Armond, his 8-year-old son to a device that tracked eye movements and brain waves. After Armond fell asleep, his father noticed that the eye-tracking “pens” were swinging back and forth. Aserinsky checked on him and found the boy sound asleep. His paper on sleep, published in 1953, was the first time REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep had been described. Before that, scientists believed that the sleeping brain was more or less turned off.

When I read that, I was surprised because at 5 years old, I thought everyone knew the human brain never sleeps.  

Humans and all land mammals experience spells of REM in sleep. In those events, the heart rate speeds up, breathing becomes irregular, and brain waves are more variable. However, major muscles that we normally control cannot move.

REM sleep normally first occurs about 60 to 90 minutes after falling asleep. As people age, we get less REM sleep, and REM’s function is still not entirely clear. Some specialists say it’s related to memory formation, but people who take antidepressants spend far less time in REM sleep, and that doesn’t seem to consistently affect their memory. Also, it’s a myth that we only dream during REM sleep. Our most vivid dreams may occur during REM sleep, but dreaming can occur in all sleep stages. In fact, sometimes I drop off to sleep and wake up within a minute with a fully-developed dream still in my mind.

We’ve all heard people boasting that they’re perfectly functional on five hours of sleep or less. Adults do vary in their sleep needs, but I’m told that the number of who are at their best with such little sleep is very small. Long-term sleep deprivation can be linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and traffic accidents.

So why do people say they’re fine with less than an average of 7 hours of sleep? A rush of cortisol, the hormone that revs us up to manage stress, can create the sensation of alertness. We’re told it’s an illusion; the sleep-deprived still do poorly on objective tests of their short-term memory and motor skills.

But since childhood, I’ve operated day-in-and-day-out the best at 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Once every other week, I might sleep 8-9 hours. But when I make myself consistently sleep 8 hours a night, I am usually groggy the next day. I found that my internal clock determines my best sleep time and wakeup time.

 We all go through various sleep cycles, or stages. Although there is an “average” that sleep specialists talk about, everyone is different, and we are wrong to force the average on people. We need to find what works best for ourselves, and go with it.

I read that, on the average, seniors usually need 7 to 8 hours, and other adults need 7 to 9. Some teens need 8 to 10 hours and younger children need even more. People who are getting enough sleep usually take at least 15 minutes to fall asleep when they get into bed. However, Carol & I get enough sleep and are usually out in less than two minutes.

Before there were glowing smartphones and bedside lamps, people lived by sunlight, not by clocks. Families blew out a candle and retreated to bed. After about four hours of sleep, adults awoke for a brief period, then dozed off for another 4-5 hours. That’s apparently a natural rhythm. My wife has that type of sleep pattern, as did her mother and grandmother (an immigrant from Sweden).

When people get proper sleep – be it 8-10 hours or 5-6 hours – they are normally much healthier than those who are sleep deprived. They are happier, think more clearly, make fewer mistakes, and are more productive. Psalm 139:13-14 in the Bible (NCV) says, “You [God] made my whole being; you formed me in my mother’s body. I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way. What you have done is wonderful.”

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Historical Global Climate Change

We’ve been told: “Mankind and modern technology are creating greenhouse gases which are responsible for melting glaciers and polar ice caps, and warming the oceans. Therefore, our technology will cause massive coastal flooding within a hundred years.” The question is: Is that true?

That scenario can be confusing because the same people who bemoan human-caused global warming tell us the earth has undergone several ice-ages in the prehistoric past. If they’re right, the earth froze and thawed several times without man’s assistance. So if our technology wasn’t available, what caused the assumed cooling and re-heating cycles?

We have geological evidence that the entire earth was a greenhouse 5 to 8 thousand years ago. We also know that for every effect there is a cause. Therefore, without man to mess with the earth, what caused the earth to cool down? Geological data shows that the earth’s oceans could have been about 300 feet lower than they are now. What raised the ocean levels? Without the human factor, what caused the earth to warm up again?

To compound the problem, I just read that by 2050 the earth might undergo another “mini-ice-age” and the sun will be the culprit.

Mount Kilauea, one of three active volcanos in Hawaii, has a lava lake that is over 520 feet wide, is very deep, and of course it’s fed from the huge magma pool. On April 26, 2015 the “lake” level rose twenty-six feet. The previous week, Chile’s Calbuco volcano erupted again. On May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens erupted. And in April of 2010, Mount Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland erupted which caused substantial disruption to air traffic across Europe. There are about 1,500 potentially active volcanos above water and 500 potentially active underwater. People ignore the fact that these mountains spew heat into the water and atmosphere which affects the climate. Dr. Dan Walker at the University of Hawaii noticed a strong correlation between seismic and volcanic activity in the Pacific Ocean and El Nino cycles over a period of 25 years. Also, sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid are produced by volcanic activity which is carried world-wide on the trade winds. Volcanism produces an average of over 5.5 billion tons of CO2 annually. And man cannot stop any of this.

Does the book containing the oldest available historical record of man say anything about global climate?

It does. Genesis 2:6 says, “The Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.”

But Genesis 8:22 reports after the world-wide flood, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Then Genesis 9:12-13 says, “And God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow [rainbow] in the cloud….”

We find that the earth was a greenhouse with no rain. That infers continuous cloud cover with a more massive atmosphere; and that suggests no direct sunlight reaching the ground. After the flood, Genesis 8:22 mentions “cold and heat, and summer and winter.”

Seasons were introduced which suggests massive geological, atmospheric, and climatological changes. There was a sudden world-wide cool-down with the sudden appearance of what became polar ice caps. Man’s average lifetime was reduced from 912 years (before the flood) to 285 years (as of Abraham’s lifetime). Winter, mountains, deserts, snow, hail, rain, tornados, and hurricanes were gradually introduced to the world.

Matt Cantor wrote an interesting article (May 3, 2015) titled “Ancient Climate Change Could Explain Tibet Mystery.” Matt said that about 4,000 years ago Tibetan climate suddenly became much colder. Of course, man didn’t cause that temperature shift.

With the probable influx of massive amounts of ice from ice comets that slammed onto earth which changed the earth’s astronomical posture, the earth went into geological convulsions and the earth’s crust broke up. And the earth has been ever-so-slowly reverting to its temperate equilibrium ever since. Although mankind should increasingly clean up industrial contamination, man is not able to control earth’s climate. If mankind were removed and the earth was given to the animals, the warm-up would continue. Since God caused it, He is the one who will have to stop it … if and when He wants to.

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Lessons From the Flock – Stay Focused

What are they doing out there?”

I was pouring a cup of coffee – my first one of the day – and had my back to Carol.

“What are who doing out where?”

“You have to look and see.”

It was around 7:15 in the morning and I had already gone out to let the girls (chickens) out of the coop. As I prepared their mix of goodies, they followed me so closely that I nearly stumbled over them. Goldie and Elona pecked my britches as a sign to pick them up and love them a little – which I did. Then, as they began gobbling up the morning meal, I returned to the house where my coffee was waiting.

As I set my cup down, Carol reached for her camera to take a video of what was taking place. I began laughing. I had seen this many times previously but had never seen it from Carol’s viewpoint.

Goldie had entered the coop but left it within a few seconds. Whitey was walking toward the entrance of the coop. When Goldie walked out, Whitey entered, but quickly exited and stood at the entrance. Red Head was pacing a few feet away.

“Elona must be on the nest, Precious, and the other girls are waiting. No one will go in to make their deposit until Elona leaves the nest. And it looks like Whitey will be next.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Even if she’s on the nest, there are four more nests available. “Why don’t they use the other nests?”

I poured milk into my coffee to cool it and to give it a better flavor. I don’t like black coffee. I don’t like it hot, either.

“That’s human logic, Precious, but not necessarily bird logic. Remember when Goldie became a brooder and sat on twenty-three eggs?”

“Yes. All four birds laid the eggs in one nest.”

“They still do that quite often.”

“But Fred has been gone for eleven months now; do they think they can raise another flock?”

(Fred was the rooster.) “Who knows? I can figure out part of their thinking, but not all of it. All I can say is the girls seem to be waiting in line until it’s their turn to pay their dues.”

“You mean, lay their eggs. I didn’t know chickens could be so patient. Look!”

Elona walked out, and Whitey entered. Goldie moved up and stood at the entrance – Red Head continued pacing a few feet away. She would go last.

Putting her camera down, Carol finally said, “When it comes to eating, they will grab worms, cockroaches, moths, and other choice morsels from each other’s beaks; and Elona and Goldie fight each other vying for your attention. But when it comes to taking dust baths or laying eggs, they patiently wait in line? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know if it is about patience; it might be a matter of being focused.”

The day before, Goldie and Red Head were chasing Elona all over the quarter-acre backyard trying to get the night-crawler away from her. Focused on that worm, they cornered Elona, and all three birds managed to eat a portion of that 7-inch fish-bait.

 The birds know how to be focused. God programmed that into them. As they meander around the yard, they are always on the alert for a bug – either flying or creeping. Sometimes one of them will half-run and half-fly all the way across the yard, leap or fly up several feet and grab a butterfly that is flying low. Now that’s being focused!

Is there something we can learn from our flock? Yes.

Not able to focus on eternal values, chickens are focused on what will keep them alive physically. But it’s supposed to be different with humans. What are you focused on? Fun? Personal gain? Entertainment? Vocational advancement? Vengeance? Disappointments? None of that will help you when you stop breathing. God built within us the ability to focus on eternal values.

Philippians 3:13b-14 says, “I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. (NLT)”

The prize the Apostle Paul was focused on was eternal life with God which he gained by living for and honoring Jesus Christ while here on earth. We must fulfill our responsibilities on earth, but let’s stay focused on honoring our Heavenly Father by obeying our Lord, Jesus Christ.

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Lessons From the Flock – Security

Two of my chickens don’t like to be picked up, but something was different today.

I prepared their mix of goodies which consists of whole-grained rolled-oats, dried meal worms, cut-up apples, bread bits, and scratch. Water and the 16% protein meal called Crumbles are available 24/7.

As I tossed the mix out for them, Elona and Baby wanted to be picked up. These two, and Goldie, are the ones who always want to be loved on. I picked up Baby, then Elona. But this time, Whitey and Red Head came up. That’s unusual because they are the more elusive ones.

As I held and talked with Elona – she was explaining life to me – Whitey stood at my feet.

“You want up, Whitey?” She took a step closer.

I put Elona down and scooped up Whitey. She cocked her head, looked at me from both sides of her head, and talked – but not freely as do Baby, Elona, and Goldie. They chatter with me, but Whitey merely said a few syllables. (I’m not joking.)

Then Goldie walked up and began pecking on my britches. That’s her signal to pick her up. Elona does that, too.

I put Whitey down and scooped up Goldie, and she began telling me what she’s been doing lately. I then felt Red Head bump against me as she was looking for more worms. I put Goldie down and picked up Red Head.

She squirmed a bit but didn’t try to get away. However, she wouldn’t talk at all. Red Head merely looked at me as if to say, “Are you happy now that I let you pick me up?” When she looked at the ground and wiggled her legs, I put her down, and she continued her search for worms. I had an extra worm in my hands, so I said, “Red Head – you want this?”

Without hesitation she jumped up, and with outstretched neck grabbed it with her beak. At that movement, the others came running. They wanted it! Do you know the chicken’s philosophy of life? Here it is: If I have it, it’s mine. If you have it, it’s mine. And if I had it but you took it, it’s still mine!

So, I threw out another handful of dried meal worms; that generated another feeding-frenzy.

I often hold all five of the chickens – no more than three at a time, of course. I watch over my flock because (this may sound strange) I love them. I care for them and feed them very well. After losing the rooster (Fred) because I forgot to lock the coop, I always make sure they are safe and secure at night. They, in turn, come running to me every time I go out the back door. Again, as strange as it sounds, these babies love me – at least, as much as chickens know how to love.

Do you know that God loves us and wants to take care of us? But He does much more than I can do for my birds. I watch over my flock on a limited scale at best, but our Creator-Savior is a good shepherd and watches over His flock 24/7. He knows what’s happening with us every second of the day. He desires to “hold us” and care for us, and He goes out of His way to keep us safe and secure – if we let Him.

Amazingly, God is also limited in what He can do for us. What’s the limitation?

We are the limiting factor.

If my chickens wanted to, they could fly over the fence and escape my protective, nurturing care. They would be independent to roam freely. But they don’t. They stay with me, they trust me, they’re secure with me.

But many humans don’t have the wisdom my chickens have, and they run from God. Desiring independence, they “fly over the fence.” They fly from safety and into danger. They run from plenty, and into poverty. That’s not wise.

John 14:21 tells us that whoever loves the Lord – those who listen to and obey Him – are the ones to whom God the Father will reveal Himself.

If we run to God, and remain in His protective care, we can receive the “mix of goodies” that He wants to give us – in addition to His sustaining care available 24/7.

God loves you and desires to communicate with you. Study the Bible, learn to know Jesus, and find your security in and with Him. You may be surprised at the results.

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Reaching for Life

I’ve been looking at my pictures of the redwood forest in Northern California. The trees are big! Our pine tree in back yard that is over two and a half feet in diameter looks big; but it is small compared to a relatively small five-foot diameter redwood tree. Amazingly, redwoods that are 10-18 feet in diameter are common, and it staggers the imagination knowing that the diameter of the General Sherman Redwood is over 32 feet!

A typical farmed redwood tree may weigh 50,000 pounds, but some redwoods weigh over 2,000,000 pounds! Interestingly, about half the weight is in the water. The redwood bark may be 2-feet thick, and a huge redwood tree may provide wood to build 30-35 homes.

Water is necessary for life. The redwoods grow to 250-350 feet tall and require over 100 gallons per tree per day. But it rains a lot in these forests, snows in the winter, and fog is prevalent; therefore, they are seldom thirsty. The root systems of redwoods are shallow, and that would mean a heavy wind or flood could topple them easily. But as they reach for life-giving water, a mature tree spreads its roots over 2 to 4 acres; and with 8 to 20 trees per acre, the root systems overlap and intertwine which results in a strong foundation for these top-heavy giants. They effectively support each other in rough times.

Light is also necessary for life. God engineered plants to reach for or aim toward light. This is called phototropism. The same is true of these giant trees. Programmed to be tall anyway, they continue to reach for life – for sunlight. Lone trees out in the open will not be as tall as those in the forest with a thick canopy of foliage; and they are also open to more danger. There is protection among its neighbors.

The mature redwoods are basically fire-resistant. The thick, fibrous bark does not burn easily; and as a protective shell, it insulates the tree which allows it to survive most fires. The thick bark also provides protection of another kind: it has the ability to withstand fungus, disease, and insect attacks. This is why these trees live so long. The oldest known redwoods are about 3,000 years old. Only the bristlecone pines (about 5,000 years old) are known to be older.

Looking at the pictures of these magnificent trees, my mind gravitates toward humanity. I see similarities. No – not about size, but about other features and qualities.

The redwood’s root system covers a wide area which gives it stability in inclement weather. In the same way, our roots in healthy relationships with family, church, and society give us stability during “inclement” situations such as death, job loss, health deterioration, and more. In our many storms of life, we need each other for emotional and physical support. But our strong roots in a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ will help us even more in this life on earth, as well as throughout eternity.

 A straight tree is stronger than a crooked tree, and its wood is useable in more situations. Likewise, a morally and intellectually straight man is stronger, trustworthy, where an immoral or double-minded man is weak, confuses people, and leads people down the path of destruction.

Trees must reach for the light to survive. In the same manner, man must reach for light – truth – to survive. We cannot survive very long, either societally or spiritually, if we live in spiritual and moral darkness. We cannot mature as morally strong individuals if we resist truth.

As the thick bark protects the trees, living in truth will protect us. Knowing the truth about various aspects of life – food, environment, chemicals, health, morals, physiology, and a lot more – can help us live safely. And purposefully living according to the truths found in the Bible will protect us in many ways most people don’t yet understand.

As the trees depend on water from the sky for life, man depends on guidance from the sky – direction from God – for life. Psalm 1:1-2 tell us not to follow the advice of ungodly people, but to meditate on and live according to the words of the Lord. Psalm 33:11 tells us that God’s plans are good, healthy, and beneficial. And Proverbs 14:11-12 warn us that man’s apparently powerful plans will fail in the end, but God’s seemingly weak plans are actually strong and will stand forever. Trust in Jesus: Reach for Life.