CREATION: “Ah ha!”

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Genesis 1:1

They call it the “Ah ha!” experience. Kathy Hummel, media and production director of the National Scrabble Association says, “It comes from creating something out of nothing, you stick your hand in a bag and pull out seven random letters and build words.” The game is known as Scrabble.

In the beginning, Alfred Mosher Butts, an unemployed architect from Poughkeepsie, NY, decided he wanted to create a new game. He analyzed many games and found they fell into three categories: number games, such as dice and bingo; move games, such as chess and checkers; and word games, such as anagrams.

Wanting to create a game which would use both chance and skill, Butts combined features of anagrams and crossword puzzles. First called Lexiko, the game was later called Criss Cross Words. To decide on a letter distribution, Butts calculated the letter frequency on the front page of The New York Times.

In the depths of the Depression, Butts and entrepreneur James Brunot rented an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Conn., and turned out twelve games an hour, stamping letters on the wooden tiles.

In 1949, Brunot made 2,400 sets and lost $450. Then in the early 1950s, as legend has it, the president of Macy's discovered Scrabble on vacation and ordered some for the store. Within a year, demand was higher than supply and Scrabble had to be rationed to stores. Recently, Hasbro began selling Scrabble on CD.

I doubt it would be good to call the creation an “Ah ha” experience but, “In the beginning God” also created something out of nothing [we call it ex nihilo; Romans 4:17]. However, I believe if you and I had been there it might fairly be called the “Oh, my!” experience.

God didn’t have to reach into a bag to do it, either; He simple spoke it into existence [Hebrews 11:3]. But He did have trouble selling the idea … and still does. You see saved-man lives by faith and not by sight [2 Corinthians 5:7], while the unsaved insist on “seeing is believing.”

Also in the beginning was the Word. Only this Word was not made up of seven letters, it was made up of the Son of God [John 1:14]. And no one had to go to the front page of anything to see which words should be used in composing His Word.

Christianity, Creation,
Illustrations, Religion

OMNIPOTENCE: The Mother of all power!

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VALUE AND SUBSTANCE: [Mark 6:37]

The story is told of a gifted musician who, with his violin, was able to sway an enormous number of music lovers. One day he played and played, manipulating his audience on till their enthusiasm reached its zenith. Pausing, he held his instrument aloft, and then smashed it over the back of a chair.

The people were enraged. They jumped to their feet as one and briefly surged toward the master-player for destroying the violin that produced such unearthly sounds, such glorious music. But there stood the musician, calm and serene.

When the audience’s rage abated, he said quietly, "I know how you feel, but I want to teach you a lesson. Do you see the shattered violin? Well, it only cost fifty dollars!”

Picking up another, he continued, "Now I am going to play on this instrument, my most treasured violin, costing me some fifty thousand dollars. By my action, which you’ve condemned, I want to teach you that music is not in the instrument, but in the player.” And then he played on the second violin. And there was no discernable difference in the music.

In the hands of a master, the cheap violin produced strains equal to that of the costlier instrument. We are
slow to learn music is not in the instrument but in the Player. It makes little difference to the Lord (who is the Creator of all true harmony) whether the violin of your life is worth a trifling or a fortune.

It isn’t what you have but what He imparts which counts. Why, He can take mere nobodies and use them in a mighty way! "Little is much, if God is in it.” The miracle of the loaves proves He is supreme at multiplication.

Source: Lockyer, Herbert, “The Ten Strings’” Union Gospel Press (nd) 28,29; edited for use.

God (Decree of)

IF IT AIN’T WHERE YOU WANT IT, MOVE IT!
Jeremiah 5:22 [Omnipotence, Sovereignty]

A neighbor of mine in the mountains above Santa Cruz, California, used to ignore our boundaries and use everyone’s property like it was his own.

Man can neither create or stop the weather, yet man is far more troublesome and unruly than the worst ocean tempest nature can send us.

The sea obediently keeps its boundaries. Is it the sea’s obedience or the belt of sand which stops it from overwhelming the shore? Mighty as it is, the sea heeds an unheard tongue, remaining in its place … it hears and obeys. The sand is simply a line drawn by God; though raging with storm, the earth’s oceans respect that voice. And the sea, with never-ending constancy obeys the laws of God and nature.

Man neither comes nor goes at His command, but sullenly prefers to do his own thing.

Every molecule of water feels the power of law, and yields or moves at once.

Self-willed man, on the other hand, shakes his fist at heaven and burdens the earth with his unrighteousness.

What a wonder it would be for man to conformed to God’s will; think of the awesome power of all men complying to even infinitely smallest degree?