And Other Great Human Things (and Disasters)
Thursday, May 18, 2023
The Model T and the VW Bug
are among the most mass-produced car models in history.
What they and others have wrought!
Proverbs 19:21
The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established.
Acts of the Apostles 1:6-9
So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
Words of Grace For Today
The plans of mice and men and women; all are temporized by our inabilities to execute the plans, but even more by our inability to foresee the full impact of the consequences, intended and unintended, by our plans.
In 1769 did Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot think of the consequences of violent storms from climate change when he created the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation; or did Carl Benz when he produced several identical copies of the first practical, marketable, gasoline-powered automobile for everyday use; or did the many vehicle manufacturers since?
Could Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford, in 1901 foresee the threat to life (not only by nuclear weapons, by accidents ‘salting the earth’, and waste that takes millions of years to decay to safe levels, but also by the political destabilization nuclear power causes and the ensuing denials of ‘global warming’ – better referred to as climate change) with their discovery that radioactivity was part of the process by which atoms changed from one kind to another, involving the release of energy. Soddy wrote that atomic energy offered the possibility to transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen poles, and make the whole earth one smiling Garden of Eden. Did he conceive at all what melting the ice at the poles would do to the oceans, weather, and sustainability of life on earth? Yes he was aware that his discovery could also make possible terrible new weapons, but did he imagine what that would bring us? ‘Hiding under desks in the halls’ certainly cannot save us from this threat to all life on earth.
Doch, God knew all this and more, namely everything that humans would plan, try to do, succeed at and fail at, and still God created us foolish humans.
How could God do such a thing?
Out of love, and the choice to share love with us, for if we are to love, then we must freely choose it (otherwise it is not love) and therefore we must also be able to choose not to love. That choice not to love God, ourselves, and our neighbours (even our enemies) is the foundation of all our foolish evil and unforeseen consequences that plague us now. Climate change is only one example, as here we suffer wildfires and smoke making life a lot more challenging that it already was.
How did God deal with all our foolish plans?
God sent Jesus to show us how to live out the love God has for us.
The simplest thing, it is, this love. Yet it is also the most difficult and complex thing to live out. We can dream it easily enough. Doing it is a whole other thing, which we only succeed at if God works in us to make it so.
Thank God, God does exactly that.
Ready or not for today: God is at work in us long before the clock ticks into this day, long before the sun rises.