Who Made This?

            "Sir Isaac Newton was in his office one day when he received a knock at his door.  He opened it to find a good friend of the scientific community who happened to be on the opposite side of the beginning of the universe controversy.  As he entered the room, his eyes were drawn to a large table on which sat a scale model of the universe.  It was exquisitely detailed -- painted even down to the circles on Saturn.  It was mechanical -- a handle caused the planets to rotate around the sun.  This moving replica was an amazing sight.  “My, what a wonderful thing this is!” he exclaimed.  “This is the most extraordinary thing I have seen! What genius put this together?  I should really like to shake his hand.”  Sir Newton replied, “No one made it.”  His friend retorted, “You must think I am a fool...Some very wise and talented person made this.”  Newton’s reply is still a wise answer to the current controversy.  “This thing is but a puny imitation of a much greater system whose laws you and I know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and a maker.  Yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being with either designer or maker.  Now tell me, by what sort of reasoning do you reach such incongruous conclusions.”"*

            Design demands a designer.  We take that as a given in everyday life.  When we see a beautiful new home, we never question that some intelligent and resourceful person or group of people designed and built it.  But for some, that common sense response is jettisoned when it comes to the Designer of the universe.  Why is that, I wonder?  Could it have something to do with the fact that this Designer makes some claims upon our lives to which many are unwilling to submit?  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

God loves you!

Mike

*Mike Johnson, in The Truth: God or Evolution, Marshall/Sandra Hall, Baker Book House

Broken

"Going once, going twice, sold for $7,000.00!" the auctioneer said right before his gavel hit the table. Rita Coors was elated. She'd just purchased a porcelain mask, hand painted by John Denver.  She couldn't wait to hold it in her hands. As the auctioneer at the 1997 Charity Celebrity Ball for Hospice of Metropolitan Denver handed her the mask, it slipped through her fingers and shattered into a million pieces on the floor.  She didn't demand her money back or abandon the broken piece of art. Instead, Mrs. Coors picked up the pieces and took them home with her. Later she decided to place the broken pieces around a collection of John Denver photographs. She made something beautiful out of the accident. Now she not only had a souvenir from a celebrity, but a story to tell too.  Brokenness isn't unusual. Life often slips through our fingers and shatters at our feet. When it does, the best thing we can do is pick up the pieces and make something beautiful out of it, and then be willing to share the story with others who've been shattered too.”*

Perhaps you have stood (or are currently standing) where this woman stood, with something of great value to you lying in shattered pieces at your feet.  Maybe a marriage, a family, a career, a life goal of some sort -- something into which you had invested so much and for which you had so much hope.  But now it’s irreparably broken with no hope of it ever being what it once was.  What then?  It seems to me that there are basically two options.  You can let the brokenness defeat you or you can pick up the pieces and begin to build something else of value.  This isn’t to make light of your loss.  Be sure to make room to grieve the brokenness but be careful of letting it define you.  Jesus died so that brokenness doesn’t have to be the end of your story.

God loves you!

Mike

*Leadership Journal, Winter 2001, p. 40 Illustration by Jim L. Wilson