Scripture: 1 Peter 1:8
Though you have not seen him, hospital you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

Thought for the Day: There’s an email group I belong to with my two brothers, my Uncle John, and several lifelong friends from our old neighborhood in Moss Bluff, Louisiana, the place we most consider home. My uncle is a retired natural sciences teacher, my brother Adam is a confirmed agnostic, and the group in general sees religion more as a detriment than an aid to society. They are all brilliant people. They often ask me how I can believe in God when science has discovered and taught us so much about the natural world. Who needs a meddlesome deity when we understand DNA, the Big Bang, evolution and subatomic physics?

I can’t see God, but over and over throughout my life God has filled me with inexpressible and glorious joy. I have felt the presence of God in my life, and I see the presence of God in everything and everyone that exists. I know in my heart that without God there would be nothing, and that because of God there is everything. I can’t prove it scientifically, but the more science probes the farthest reaches of space and the smallest particles of reality, the more I am convinced God is a very real, conscious, and creative energy of pure love. I agree with my friends—we don’t need a meddlesome deity that picks and chooses who is “saved” and who is not. And science is helping us overcome that old superstition and leading us to new and deeper understandings of the nature of God and reality.

Prayer: Holy God who fills the world with love, may we continue to find your fingerprints of creation everywhere we explore, and in everyone we encounter. Amen.