The Wonder of Heaven
Genesis 1:8
The very sound of the word is synonymous with happiness, bliss, ecstasy, and ultimate pleasure. Heaven. It is a varied word with several uses Biblically. There is, of course, the heaven where God is said to dwell and which will be the eternal abode of the believer when death of Rapture comes. There is also the stellar heaven, the vast expanse of space that seems, to our mortal minds to be inexhaustible and incomprehensible in its size. Neither of these "heavens" are what is in view in this verse. This heaven in the natural heaven, the heaven that we are surrounded by and wonder at day after day. It is the heaven in which the birds fly and from which we breath with each rising and falling of our chests.
Could there be any more perfect atmosphere in which God could place us? It is perfectly designed to support our lives and sustain all that we need to continue living. There are natural mechanisms to clean the air, to replenish it, and to scrub it clean and make it wholesome, all natural processes! If we think about the delicate process that God put in place in creation we will, I think, once again be moved to worship and praise.
That the plants take in the carbon dioxide that you and I breathe out and transform it into oxygen once again, nourishing themselves in the process is wondrous. That the trees and all of the vegetative world live by this process, a kind of cooperation with us is truly marvelous. Even the plankton in the vast oceans contribute to this process!
Think of the process of evaporation, and rain that goes on without our knowledge, or at least our awareness day by day. Without it, there would be no fresh water, another essential element for our continued survival.
Think of the intricate pattern of winds and air currents that move clouds across the world, and shuttle temperatures into patterns that affect entire continents - all invisible and all functioning as they did the first day that God put them into place.
Think of all of the air currents that carry seeds and pollen, and the insects that pollinate plants that fly from flower to flower. Think of the dramatic storms that cause fires and floods and the erosion in one place and build up in others that changes the topography of the world!
What a marvelous creation the heavens are! What an innocuous creation they are! How unassuming! How easy to forget and to ignore! Yet how essential they are to the living of life as we live it and as God intended it! Glorious, O Lord, is thy hand as revealed in creation!
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