God Cares: Design and Creativity

The is a picture of the Horseshoe Falls, better know as the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. This is a God designed structure that has one sole purpose: to glorify God.

I went to Niagara Falls (Which is one reason there wasn't a lot of posts last week) and it got me to thinking this: Why did God make Niagara Falls?

Why did God make that swirl of colors? Why didn't God make earth like the moon...plain...empty. Then I came to one conclusion:

GOD LOVES US

There are so many things God created that are beautiful, but they don't have to be there.

While God was punishing one generation with the flood, he was blessing another with natural structures, and with a pretty home to call ours.

God punished man, and yet he was still thinking of us. He wanted to bless us and make things that scream his name. 

Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD from the heavens, praise him in the heights above. Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts. Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars. Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies. Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created. He set them in place for ever and ever; he gave a decree that will never pass away. Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars,wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, old men and children. Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his splendor is above the earth and the heavens. He has raised up for his people a horn, the praise of all his saints, of Israel, the people close to his heart. Praise the LORD.

Psalm 148

Let them praise the Lord! "you highest heavens and you waters above the skies" This makes me think of a waterfall, the water above the sky.

Standing beside Niagara Falls made me feel small. Watching water tumble over it's edge left me feel weak. But God is bigger than anything he created. I can't even image how I'd feel before God when I felt so small compared to his creation.

At Nigera, I went on a boat that went right below Niagara Falls. Look at the water. Niagara Falls is amazing, but the thought that God put into it is even more incredible. God thinks about us. And Niagara Falls is one of the smallest examples of it.

This crazily insane waterfall that has thousands of gallons of water going over its edge. God made a masterpiece the day he he spoke and the earth came to be, and he added some extra stokes with the flood.

The Bible says that the stars proclaim the glory of God...well the stars are not the only thing that tell of God's majesty.

He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar--the LORD Almighty is his name.

Jeremiah 31:35

Photo Credit:

Niagara Falls Pictures: Me!

Moon: http://lightsinthedark.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/a-leap-for-mankind/

Earth: http://joyfulpapist.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/god-created-the-heavens-and-the-earth/

The Flood: Painting a Picture

Ok, so some of you might think of the flood as destroying the earth, which it was, but the flood is much of than that. let me explain, the flood is like God painting a picture, of course there was creation, but God changed the world and did some touch up work when the flood happened. (I'm not saying that when God made the earth it wasn't perfect, I'm saying that sin and humans made the earth less perfect and God destroyed all living things while repairing the world.)
Imagine a mountain...many peaks behind it and just beautiful.
Keep that picture, but now think of the ocean... waves hitting the beach...and it gets better in the sand sometimes a wave leaves a mountain looking impression.
Now, imagine huge, powerful waves hitting rock and carving the mountains we see today. pretty cool? that is why creation makes sense. some people say that with an explosion the earth was created .
Ok, another picture, imagine buying a model car set, then getting all the pieces in a bag, now shake the bag...think about how long it will take you shaking the pieces up so that you have a car when you open the bag maybe...never.
When people talk about "the big bang" they are saying an explosion created the earth and universe. To me, it seems crazy to think that could happen by shaking things up.
You see, God wants us to see that he signed his picture and he left incredible evidence.

The Flood: Introduction

Ok, so I am doing a two post series on the flood. first I'll start by telling the bible story most of you have probably heard "Noah's Ark" 
Let's start. first, you should kniw that people lived a lot longer then. see genesis 5, which is a list of people after Adam.
Genesis 5:32: After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.
See, that's a long time, but now I'll take you to genesis 6, where God looks all the people in the earth.
The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.


So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
Noah did everything just as God commanded him.


Then we move to chapter seven, after Noah has finished the ark.


The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."
Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth.


In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month--on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.
Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind.


The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.


First, this last part is true, it rained for 40 days, but the water didn't vanish in moments after 40 days, it took 150 days for the water to soak up into the ground.

If you were noah

What if you were Noah?

Wouldn't that be an amazing job?

all the land animals coming two by two.

I think it would be amazing. 

think of the scary animals you'd see.

And think of after the flood, It would be Noah...

...his family, and wild animals chilling in a boat, waiting for the water levels to go down.

This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. Noah did everything just as God commanded him. 

Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.Every living thing that moved on the earth perished--birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds--everything that moves on the earth--came out of the ark, one kind after another.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even thoug hvery inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 

I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.