A sailor pulls a rope, the sail turns, and the wind carries his wooden boat away from shore. He chooses where he wants to go. Wind presses against the sail, and water supports the boat through buoyancy. He adjusts his course, puts the wind to work, and watches the shoreline slip behind him. The laws of nature God established make the journey possible. He has freedom to sail within those parameters.
Centuries later, builders stretch a bridge across a gorge. A beam swings into place, and men secure it above the drop. Its weight must pass through the supports and down into solid ground. The engineer chooses where those supports go, how far the beams span, and what materials will hold them together. Each decision must account for gravity pulling downward, wind pushing sideways, and the weight the structure can bear. The builders shape the bridge. God established the laws that determine whether it stands.
The sailor works with wind and water. The builders work with weight and strength. Each can accomplish something different within the order God gave creation.
Looking skyward, human beings set their sights beyond earth. A spacecraft rises on a column of fire while the people watching below cheer. Its engines produce enough thrust to overcome its weight. Engineers calculate its course around the pull of gravity, even using that pull to help it reach its destination. What once seemed to hold people to the ground becomes part of how they travel through space. Their freedom to explore grows as they learn to work with the laws God placed before them.
There is something wonderfully humbling about that. Every discovery that enlarges what we can do also reveals more of the order we depend upon, more of the established parameters we may freely operate within. Sure, we can split an atom and release its energy, but even that power comes from working with the nature God gave it.
Across the centuries, the sailor, the builder, the engineer, and the scientist work within the same creation. Each can choose a different course and leave something new for the next generation. God’s sovereignty gives all that work a world it can depend upon. Water can bear a vessel. Materials can carry a load. A course can be calculated through the heavens. Science can speculate, theorize, and test its way into conclusions. Human ingenuity finds room to flourish as people expand their abilities, learn from failed attempts, and discover how much they can accomplish within the limits defined by God’s design.
How we use that knowledge matters. Knowledge can bring light to a home or devastation to a city. The choice belongs to us, and we answer for it. Our growing abilities remain beneath God’s authority, just as surely as our inventions remain subject to the laws that make them work. He sees what we build, whom it serves, and what it costs the people around us.
We will press forward. Knowledge will increase, and we will accomplish new things. Each generation will discover that free agency allows them to go further than they ever knew before—some will pretend they have unlimited power. They will pretend they are a god unto themselves as they lord over others. Even that pretense may only operate within the boundaries of God’s design.
Beyond the reach of all our knowledge and ability stands the final say.
It belongs to God.
“There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand.” —Proverbs 19:21
—Jeff Wager
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