Innovation, Discovery and God's presence ...

Tuesday, May 19, 2015. Over the past days I spent a lot of time with human innovation. It started with a recent book about human civilization. But then we ended up in the National Air and Space Museum (Washington DC) - studying the beginning of the human flight era, with Lilienthal and the Wright brothers discovering the principles of modern air travel. And we spent a lot of time today in the National Gallery of Art (National Mall) - with fascinating works from nearly 1000 years of art history.

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Fascinating World …

We truly live in a fascinating world. Today, we use electronics. We have mobile phones, television and internet. Travel has become easy with either railways, cars or air planes. It is exciting to walk on the trails of the early inventors. It is breathtaking to see how quickly the modern world evolved from about 1500 AD until today. 150 years ago we did not even know that there are radio waves - and today we use them daily, everyone.

What is God's role in all of this? What is the role of biblical revelation? When you look at art, it seems clear that the biblical themes and topics have influenced artists ever since. In the technological world that is not that clear. Biblical topics seem to have vanished there - they have become less significant when studying natural phenomena and technical methods.

It is clear that our world has its rules and laws, and human reason has the capability to discover these. God has always given us the power to rule the world by our own reason and our own skills. We may well understand the success of science and technology as the fulfilment of the holy word:

He blessed them …

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1, 28)

Humans are capable of science. We are made to invent, to search and find. We are made to discover. And there is a lot to discover, a lot to find, a lot to learn. All this is part of the great and fascinating story of live, of humanity, of mankind.

Every time I go into prayer, and every time I sit down to study the bible, I come to the same conclusion. God has created a wonderful fascinating world for us to explore it. Human discovery is part of creation, it is part of humanity. Human discovery has been created for us - we are meant to discover, to search, to go and extend our limits within this world.

At the same time I believe that we need him, his revelation and his word. We need God, the eternal one, his guidance and presence, day by day. We need him for our life, to keep the balance, to go a straight pass. Only he can save us from the pitfalls and dangers, which every human activity bears in itself. God, my God, come into our life with your insight and wisdom, with your holy spirit! Thank you, Lord. (RWEP) ... more texts