The Heavens Tell the Story

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” 

When I was a child, this was one of the first Bible verses I learned, around the same time I learned the song “Jesus Loves Me.”

I never had any doubt that God created the universe and everything in it. Half a century has passed since I first read the creation story, and I don’t need to read it again to know it is true. I look around me – the intricate details in nature’s flora and fauna, and the vastness of the galaxies in the night sky – and I can understand why David, the psalmist, wrote that “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

What has always confounded me is the argument that the Bible and science contradict each other. ‘Why?” I reasoned. The daughter of a geologist, I knew a lot about earth science. Yet, I knew it could be tricky to connect the dots between what is taught in school and what is spelled out in the Word of God.

Then one day, everything changed. I visited the Museum of Natural History in New York City and went to a presentation at its planetarium. As I watched and listened, I got goosebumps.

“In the beginning, the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” It was almost verbatim from Genesis. The announcer continued … then there was light, and then dry land came up from the water and continents were formed. It went on from the appearance of the first microorganisms all the way to the earth’s population by humans. The order was the same as in the Bible!

How could people thousands of years ago know the exact sequence of creation, other than to be given it by God? They believed by faith that it was true, even though it took millennia for astrophysicists to be able to prove it.

Today, when I gaze up at the stars, I am reminded of that day at the planetarium in New York. Scientists are only just beginning to learn about what we already know is revealed in God’s word. His handprints are all over creation, and the heavens declare the glory of God.

Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Genesis 1:16 God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

Psalm 147:4 He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.