Rev. Dan Mielke

Grace Baptist Church

The minds and mouths of children often contain more wisdom than can be contained in the weighty books of philosophers. My 6-year-old approached me yesterday and said.  “Daddy, wouldn’t it be weird if everything in the world was opposite?”  To which I responded, “Maybe it is and we just don’t know it.” If everything was opposite, it truthfully wouldn’t be weird but rather the new normal and nothing would seem amiss.   

The profoundness of his question leads me to another question regarding God’s amazing powers in creating the stage as well as in writing the script for the universe.  How would you have designed the hippo? 

The thought of a skinny hippo is rather incongruous, yet if all hippos were slim, a fat one would seem just as out of place.  The nearly infiniteness of possibilities is mind boggling.  If you were God, how weak would you have made gravity so that humans could walk, while simultaneously strong enough for the planets to stay in orbit and the moon to refresh our shores?  What sound would you have given to the wolf or to the toilet when it is flushed? 

Imagine if those two sounds were mixed up how different a stroll in the woods would sound or imagine the shock of a child who might come running out of the bathroom?  Yet if those were the sounds given at creation, most would not wonder or give a second thought.

Multiply the complexity of the common, ordinary object by the five senses (and many more if we were to classify things with more scientific measurements) and consider how each object smells, tastes, feels, looks, and sounds (or doesn’t sound) and see how each object fits and responds exactly as would be expected.

Imagine the vastness of God’s intellect to create a world out of nothing, without a model that fits so beautifully.  The thought is further multiplied when we realize that the world fits together even across systems, yet we have the audacity to complain about so many aspects of our lives.

I am reminded of the story of Job where Job has many questions, yet in chapters 38-41 the Creator asks Job over 70 questions where the only answer is God.  “Where were you, Job, when I created the earth, where were you when I sculpted the continents, set the freezing point for water, designed a feather, or charted the course for every raindrop?”  The obvious answer is none of us were there to instruct God, in fact could you imagine if the creation of the universe was informed by a committee of humans?

Wouldn’t it be weird if everything was weird?

“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” Psalm 139:14