Let There Be Light: Devotions From Time of GraceSample

Let there be an atmosphere

Of the many branches of engineering, one of the most important is the science of how to move and control water--aqueducts, culverts, canals, locks, dams, levees, and just plain-old drainage ditches. Water is vital to human life: drinking, sanitation, farming, animal husbandry. Do you know who is the most astounding hydraulic engineer of all time? Yep. God.

On the second day of creation week, God looked at the enormous mud ball he had synthesized, lit now by the light of his glorious presence, and he spoke the words that set in motion the world’s largest hydraulic project ever: “God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault ‘sky’” (Genesis 1:7,8). God thought, willed, and spoke, and now great amounts of water were extracted from the mud ball and suspended above the surface. He must also have created the atmosphere--the mixture of gases, especially oxygen, that together with the water would make plant, animal, and human life possible on his new planet.

Some of that water was suspended in the cloud canopy and some in the air itself--we call it humidity. The gravity force he invented would pull water down occasionally, and the surface would experience it as rain or snow.

I know, I know. We usually think of rain as a nuisance. Only when your region is experiencing a drought does the rain look like the gift of God it is.