A triangle view of distant effects.

       "Oh, that's pretty!" - Actually, the view was awesome, but that's what first went through my mind. And then it turned into something more.

       I was driving downstream towards Wallace from a job near Burke, Idaho. There's a big peak named Striped up on the divide southwest of Wallace that comes in and out of view a few times as you negotiate the turns down out of the canyon. It's formed at a split in the main watershed between the St. Joe and the Coeur d'Alene river drainages and is basically a big, arching fin, the steep, rugged northeast face embracing the land below.

       I've seen Striped Peak from this road many times. It's such a grand sight that I anticipate the viewpoints and always turn my attention to the mountain when driving through here. What makes this occasion stand out is that, besides a fresh dusting of snow, simultaneously upon seeing and precisely when I thought, 'Oh that's pretty', the announcer on the radio was saying how God's love is akin to a big mountain, whos' ridges wrap around the surrounding land and protect it.

       My mind spins and jumps ship; if there are no coincidences in the Christian walk, did I just witness an example of God's sovereignty and man's free will? The experiences in life and the reasoning in one's mind should eventually, like a compass finding north, settle on the true way; the one that gets us unlost. This centering of one's inner bearing is crucial; intimate. Only you know how you truly believe.

       I began to wonder what series of events had to happen for that moment in time to occur: my turning the corner and seeing the peak just as the DJ was speaking of the very thing I was beholding.

       First, the DJ's part. What led to the selection of this statement, this bit of encouragement I so desperately needed to hear that day, from that distant voice? Was it chosen from a variety of prewritten pieces, picked at random for the day, or was it spontaneous on his part, a product of his own experiences in life?

       And what about the timing? I was listening to Moody Radio, a large enough station with all the usual broadcasting demands of timing, etc. What I heard was a small blurb inserted between regular programs and major news stories; probably a filler piece if time allowed.

       And what of my part? Had I not been working up the canyon I would not normally drive this way. I had not intended to be up where I was at that moment; it was a last minute decision to catch up on some work. I had about an hour window between an early morning men's meeting and a writers group I rarely seem to make. And I don't always have the radio on in my truck (I like my own company).

        Sometimes we're given clues that God exists outside our admission.. and understanding.

What is Truth? pt 3

       When: fairly innocuous; basically an ever-morphing investigation, on man's part. Our Creator, having made all this, is aware of and not surprised by what he sees. We, on the other hand, are still in the midst of discovering; if not God Himself, then just how incredible this world is. Modern science, measuring with the latest high tech instruments, puts our physical world as we know and measure it at just shy of 14 billion years old. This is accepted knowledge on most fronts. And this man computed measuring of time is all we can know, right now. It is as accurate as much as we can understand it, with what's been revealed to us; what we've discovered, up to this moment.

       And what if time moved differently at another time, or other dimensions existed during the creation process; let's not quibble. We've yet to consider indiscernible machinations at the cellular level or nebulae millions of light-years in breadth; the vast, unlimited reaches of space.

       What's fascinating is that all this came into existence, all this stuff had to be in place so there could be life. It's the nesting material of Life. All those unknowable time units to accumulate the necessary amount of dust and water vapor and meteoric chunks and chemical and mineral compounds to support life as we know it; time as we know it.

        Current evidence puts human presence on our earth for only so many millennia. Alarmingly close to the Bible's inference. My point is that knowing the speed or lapse of time at any given moment in the process of creation is limited or bound to our present level of understanding; our current method of measuring and understanding time.

       The Bible says that "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth..."(Gen. 1:1). We're not exactly sure how long ago that was. Nor how long it took. For a time, everything was dark. Ever wait and watch a mother hen hatch her chicks? After laying the appropriate number of eggs, she then sits on them, rarely but occasionally getting up, hovering and worrying over them, incubating them to life. This takes time; twenty-one days, on average. For a while, nothing seems to be happening: then, finally, the design is revealed and subsequently apparent; now we get it.

        Since God is eternal and we are not, it stands to reason his thoughts and views and ways might differ from ours somewhat...

       I could see the portion of creation in Gen. 1:1 and 2 taking 13 + billion years of our understood time to coalesce, and from 1:3 through 2:2 taking a week, again, of our understood time. The facts remain: we don't know how long the creation of the basic elements took, let alone what matter and time looked like then, but when God began to refine and define those elements, the Bible states it took Him just six days. What do you believe?