So much of the natural world around us operates with an intangible design. We see the evidence, but we cannot adequately describe why or how things are alive and functioning around us. We are aware of gravity, the wind, seasons, reproduction and the solar system. But who set them in motion? Who created the spark of life? Someone established these forces on the earth. They didn’t just happen.
Job got quite a lecture from the Lord about this, I love the interchange because it points to how little we really know.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements – surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?” (1)
Let’s take something as simple as gravity. We observe it every day because we can walk on the planet and not float out into space. We can describe it, but we can’t say how it came into being. Even the definition in the Encyclopedia Britannica only describes what it is, not how it came to exist: “Gravity, in mechanics, the universal force of attraction acting between all matter.” That doesn’t seem adequate.
How about the wind, the snow and lightning? We observe them, and we can describe how they occur. But we cannot say who set them in motion. Where does the wind start and stop? Job got a lesson on this as well.
“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, … Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?” (2)
In the last blog, we talked about the miracle of breathing, supplying the body with the oxygen it needs. We can describe how the exchange happens, but we cannot fathom the design behind it, except it is how the Lord designed mankind. The Lord who created that design is intangible. The very act of breathing life into a human being is intangible. Yet God breathed life into Adam and Eve. But we really don’t know how He did it. We just know He did.
Every living thing has a spark, an essence of life. If you look closely at a rose petal or a leaf, you’ll see that the cells sparkle. Examine your arm in the sunshine and you’ll see the same sparkle in your skin. But when a leaf falls, or a flower dies, it loses the vibrancy and we quickly recognize it is dead. What is this spark of life? We don’t know. We only observe it.
There are other intangibles that believers hold as well. We believe in a God we cannot see or touch. Yet the scripture tells us there is physical evidence of Him all around us.
“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (3)
But we also experience the intangible – His comfort, love, protection, provision. Our belief and faith are intangible, but we’re imbued with it when the Holy Spirit comes to live in us. Even the faith we have to believe is intangible. But we know where it originates – the Lord we worship.
The love we feel, which comes from our relationship with the Lord, is not tangible. But it’s real. We know He loves us deeply and completely through the words of the Bible and His actions toward us. But love is not tangible. Joy is not tangible. We may have joy from a newborn baby or a beautiful sunset. But the joy residing in believers is there, even in times of difficulty. It is not dependent on circumstances to generate it. It comes from the Holy Spirit within us.
So much of how we live and what we see are gifts from the Father above. Don’t discount the surrounding beauty. But even beauty is intangible. Thank Him for these things, especially when you see the tangible evidence of His design and presence.
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loosen the belt of Orion?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear and her cubs?”
Job 38:31-32 BSB
- Job 38:4-5 ESV
- Job 38:22, 35 ESV
- Romans 1:20 ESV
