Manifold Witness

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father.

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love”

                                      Thomas O. Chisholm

God has made us privy to so much more than the people who lived when Jesus walked the earth.  You’ve got to know that God, in His eternal I AM-ness, knew about telescopes and computers and dinosaurs and atoms and quarks and the internet and E=MC2.  God knew (and knows) about undiscovered truths of the day.  As we unearth these yet-to-be-discovered truths, we dare not discard them as not having originated from God, just because the Scriptures haven’t spoken of them.  Rather, we take newly-discovered truths and see what light Scriptural truth sheds on them.  Real truth will neither disprove nor discredit Scripture.  It might challenge our previously-held interpretations.  But that’s our issue, not Scripture’s.  The Word of God is true.  Truth cannot be untrue.  The fact that my little cauliflower of a brain has not yet comprehended (nor will ever!) the wonders of the Creator of the universe in no way minimizes His greatness.  In fact, my puny understanding only accentuates His greatness.

What a freeing concept!  We are free to discover.  Wherever we find truth, we learn a bit more about God.  (If astronomers should discover trees on Mars, it would not threaten our view of God; it would only serve to enlarge it. The only faith we would lose is the faith we have placed in our own puny attempts at understanding an infinite God).  We wake up each morning with a new eagerness to find out a little bit more about God today.  God speaks to us directly through Scripture, through the impressions of His Holy Spirit, and through the truths of the day, none of which are mutually exclusive.

We can know God and have relationship with Him through Christ Jesus.  And we can know about Him through His creation.  God’s creation gives witness to His nature and character and personality and attributes.

“All nature,” the song goes.  “Manifold witness.”  Each choir member has it’s own unique “voice” to add.  Every planet.  Every star.  Every tree.  Every animal.  Every insect.  Every rock.  Every molecule and atom.  Yes, every electron of every atom in the universe spins at the direction of the Director of creation’s choir.  The bazillion individual choir members are blending their voices in harmonies of praise, each telling their own, unique story.  Each witnessing to God’s character.

We, too, sing.  Every one of us each have our own unique set of insights about God.  No one’s life is like another’s.  Our life experiences, even those of people very close to us, are wildly different.  We each have a unique voice to bring to the choir.  Singing together our voices blend in rich harmonies with all the others (brothers and sisters, mountains and molecules, galaxies and snails). What a variety!  Manifold witness.