Friday, October 06, 2006

God the Artist

The other night I stepped outside the doors of the church and this picture is what I saw. As people often say there's no way the picture from my cell phone can do justice to the incredible spectrum of colors that was displayed across the sky. All I could do is stand there and marvel at the handiwork of God.

As I looked at this majestic display of the setting sun and the palette of colors used across the western sky I was reminded of the verse from Psalm 104 where it describes God:

You are very great;
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
Covering Yourself with light as with a cloak,
Stretching out heaven like a tent curtain.
Ps 104:1b-2 NASB

God indeed is an artist. But His most beautiful work of all is not the setting sun, nor the intricacy of a butterfly's wing. It's not the architecture of a spider web glistening in the morning dew, nor the aerodynamics of a hummingbird. No, the most wonderful work of our artist God is YOU!

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
Psa 8:3-5 NASB

You are God's masterpiece! You have been crowned with glory and majesty! YOU are made in HIS image, to be like Him, to be with Him! God's fingerprints are all over you since He is the artist and you are the canvess. Or, as Jeremiah describes us, we are the clay in the Potter's hand. Indeed His fingerprints are on our lives. Can you see them? Do you notice the impressions He's left? If you'll look closely enough you'll see not a series of unexplainable coincidences but the distinct imprint of God's fingerprint. Because you are indeed His finest work!

Blessings,
Nathan

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

:)
I needed this today.
Thank you.

Love and God bless,
Jess

Anonymous said...

I have often had rambling thoughts that tried to articulate these same sentiments, none of them were as graceful or eloquent as what you have written here bro. Nathan! Thanks for the scriptures also!!!
jon

NathanMartin said...

Thanks for your kind comments, guys. I really appreciate hearing from you.

Blessings!
Nathan

Anonymous said...

hola Nathan que gusto saber de ti y de tu familia y saber que se encuentran bien
saludos
alex alvarez
alexalvarez@qmcdemexico.com

NathanMartin said...

Hola Alexandro!

Que gusto recibir tu saludo! Gracias por encontrarme. Espero que todo esta bien contigo y con tu familia! Mucho amor y muchos abrazos!

Con amor fraterno,
Nathan

Anonymous said...

Brain-readout of dying atheists

Hi everybody. With interest I read scientific articles on novel brain readout techniques (like doi:10.1038/nature06713), which I wanted you to read to tell me your opinion about it.

An artifical neural net (multilayer preceptron) could be used as visual encoder to reconstruct the images seen or imagined by an individual from its brain currents (electro-encephalography) or from its biomagnetic fields, alternatively.

Thereby, the images seen or imagined by an volunteer could be reconstructed to a good extent (1 to 5 images per second, black/white, but denoted as "almost youtube-quality").

Another part of the work was the recording of the brain activity of dying persons. More than one hundred volunteers of an elderly hospital were examined in advance and questionnaired for their religious beliefs also. When they were up to die, their brain activity was recorded and the concerning images were reconstructed, finding characteristic sequences, like that reported by near-death-experiencers. There was almost always a tunnel experience, followed by some kind of judgement tribunal chaired by an old man, some kind of life film and afterwards a sequence showing a paradiese garden, or alternatively hellfire, or a "black hole" before brain flatline. Interestingly, hellfire and black hole sequences seemed to be significantly increased for atheist volunteers, whereas the paradiese garden sequences were found more frequently for persons with strong religious believes.

This technique could also be used as lie detector, or at the airport, as detector against terrorism, the inventors of this technique believe.