Amazing Earth

READ: GENESIS 1:1-19; PSALM 19:1; COLOSSIANS 1:15-22

Have you ever put together an aquarium? If not, you may be surprised how many requirements have to be met to create an ideal habitat for fish. Some species require fresh water, others salt. Some thrive with companions; others prefer to live alone. Temperature must be adjusted, a bubbler installed, and the right kind of food provided. If your fish are going to survive, you need to plan your aquarium very carefully.

God paid even more attention to detail when He created the earth. When we examine all the provisions He made for us to thrive on our beautiful planet, we find He created Earth specifically, with a very intentional design in mind. When God created, it wasn’t out of haphazard loneliness or boredom, but out of love! Consider just these few details that make it possible for plants, animals, and humans to live:

• God created oceans full of water to sustain us, as well as the weather patterns required to cycle it in various forms across the entire earth.

• God created a way to recycle oxygen through photosynthesis so we’d never run out of breathable air.

• God covered the earth in a protective atmosphere.

• God set the earth in motion with precision. If our globe rotated slower, the longer days and nights would result in extreme temperatures and lock our water supply in a solid or gaseous state.

• When God tilted the earth on an axis, He extended the growing season far into the north and south.

Isn’t God amazing? None of the other planets in our solar system can claim even one of these life-sustaining qualities, yet ours has them all! When we study God’s handiwork, we can see how wise, purposeful, and creative He truly is—and how much He truly loves us. • Michelle Isenhoff

• Sometimes our world feels chaotic. That’s why it can be helpful to slow down, examine creation, and notice God’s great care in all the intentional details He designed. Though our world has been broken by sin, we can still see God’s goodness in it, and we have the assurance that Jesus will return one day to make all creation whole, free from the effects of sin. How can beholding creation and studying it through science help us remember that God cares for us?

For the LORD is God, and he created the heavens and earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. “I am the LORD,” he says, “and there is no other.” Isaiah 45:18 (NLT)