Subtitle: The quiet miracles that keep humanity alive

Excerpt: The article highlights God’s divine protection of humanity and the universe. It emphasizes God’s ongoing care through natural processes like the hydrologic cycle, plate tectonics, and the moon’s influence on Earth’s stability. The article also underscores God’s protection from evil, both through spiritual means and by limiting the extent of evil’s influence.

Author: Debra Hodges

Why should we believe in and praise the God of the Bible? Why should we honor Him and give Him glory? Why should we be grateful for Him? A lot of people think we shouldn’t do any of this because there’s so much evil in the world, and it’s all God’s fault. Isn’t it also God’s fault for creating evil and Satan? Those questions are for another post. This article is about why there are great reasons to give God glory because, as the old cliché goes, we must “give credit where credit is due.”

Background processes

Having worked as a software developer, I learned how important asynchronous programming is for preventing the screen from freezing while background processes run. God does the same thing for our benefit. He quietly and consistently sustains the universe every day, and most of the time, we never give this fact a second thought. We take God’s ongoing care of creation for granted.

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17, NIV).

Consider the following ways God has cared for and protected His creation (for billions of years or thousands of years, if you favor a young earth over an old one), and continues to do so daily.

Cosmic, planetary, and internal protection

Earth has been shielded from gamma-ray bursts, rogue black holes, and magnetars, which can strip away the atmosphere. God set up the solar system just right so we would be protected from the impact of large asteroids and comets. Thanks to Jupiter’s massive gravity, many objects are deflected or captured by it that might otherwise have hit the Earth. The outer planets stabilize Earth’s orbit, preventing extreme climate swings. And God has provided Earth a wonderful magnetic field that is strong enough to shield us from solar radiation and coronal mass ejections. Plus, our beautiful, thick atmosphere burns up most incoming debris from space.

God created the hydrologic cycle to maintain our atmosphere by regulating temperature, redistributing heat, and circulating water. Without this self-renewing system, there would be many more climate disasters happening due to runaway heating and freezing. He gave us liquid water, which is rare in the universe and has the amazing property of floating when it freezes, allowing aquatic life to survive underneath it.

God created plate tectonics to recycle essential nutrients and regulate the global climate. Tectonic activity regulates CO2 emissions by releasing the gas through volcanoes and removing it through rock weathering.

God created the moon with the exact size and distance from the Earth to stabilize its axial tilt and to remove pollutants through the cycle of low and high tides. The rising and falling tides circulate nutrients, providing oxygen-rich water and food, and habitats for birds and marine life.

Protection from evil

As Christians, we know that our lives are deeply involved in an invisible, cosmic, spiritual battle between the forces of good and evil. Do we realize how much God protects us in this war? In addition to Scripture that tells us we belong to God and are soldiers in this battle, we are also told to put on battle armor daily. God also restrains and limits how far evil can go. Many more evil intentions exist that are not permitted to come to fruition.

I also kept you from sinning against Me (Genesis 20:6).
The Lord restrains the wrath of the nations (Psalm 76:10).

God protects us from evil by giving us a conscience. His Word gives us truth, which guards us against deception, one of evil’s primary tools. He also protects us by sending mighty angels to battle demonic forces that try to thwart His plans (as when God sent the archangel Michael to fight the prince of Persia, who was blocking the way of the angel sent to help Daniel; see Daniel 10:12–13).

Conclusion

God’s protection may be invisible, but it should never be taken for granted. Imagine what this world would be like if divine providence and protection were removed. If you’ve read the last chapter of the Bible, you know things are going to get much worse on Earth before they get better. In the meantime, let’s show our gratitude to God for all His faithfulness in the past and for the assurance of His faithful protection and reward in the future. To God be the glory and honor forever.