God or Nature

While watching a television show I hear someone say that because a particular species had evolved a certain way, it provide a certain resource for people trying to survive in the wilderness. The person on the show went on to say that Mother Nature provides many of the things we need, if we would just learn to look for them. But rather than thinking so highly of Mother Nature, I thought about what the Bible says about God feeding the birds. We know that the birds go out and find the food they eat, but God says he provides it.

I began to think about a difference in perspective. One person looks at all that is in nature and is fascinated by how much is available, if we just would open our eyes. But another person looks at it and says, “look at all God has provided.” In a sense, both are correct. If we find water in the desert, it took a long time flowing through the rocks for us to find on the day we need it. Or we could simply say that God knew we needed it and he provided.

Though both correct, how different those two perspectives are. The person looking for nature to provide has no assurance. Nature is thoughtless. If water is there, or if it isn’t, that’s just the way nature is. Nature is like a machine that cares nothing for us. But if we see God as being the one who provides, it is very different. We find water in the desert because he knew we needed water. If we are having trouble finding water, we can seek his guidance. And most importantly, we can be sure that we will not die until he is ready for us to die.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: WestBow Press

Image
T oday, I’m writing a book review unlike any I have written before. Actually, I’m going to I’m reviewing two books and I haven’t read either one. As you may recall, some time ago, Thomas Nelson announced that they were entering the vanity press market, using the imprint WestBow Press. The first books out of that arrangement are making their way down the pipeline, two of which you can see here. The first thing I noticed when they arrived was the size of the box. I arrived home and saw the box sitting on my front step. My first thought was that they had only shipped on of them. The box is the same sized box Amazon.com uses to ship individual copies of my novels. I opened it up and found both novels stacked neatly, one on top of the other. Both books have the dimensions 6” x 9”, a fairly standard size for non-traditionally published books. Publishing a book with that dimension simplifies the process when a book will be published both as a paperback and a hardback. One of the books is p...
Read more

Review: Raider Publishing

Image
A few weeks ago, I received a request from someone who had come across the popular Review: Westbow Press post. This reader requested that I look at Raider Publishing . After asking this reader a few questions via e-mail, I learned that she had used them to publish a book and was disgruntled with them. One of her complaints was that Adam Salviani was not responding to her e-mail and he was “unavailable” when she called his office in New York. This was brought on by her concern because she had not received an advance copy of her book and found that it had been published without her being informed. In her e-mail, she stated that she had been in contact with other customers and they had received the same treatment. I did what I normally do when I receive a request like this concerning a company I don’t recognize. I looked for as much third-party information as I could find on the web. Interestingly, I did that search before I realized she was disgruntled and I found relatively little to...
Read more

Is Tate Publishing a Scam?

Image
T oday, I want to take one more look at Tate Publishing and Enterprises LLC. In case you missed Tuesday’s post, Tate Publishing is a subsidy press that focuses on unpublished authors. They charge a $3,990 publicist setup fee, but they do appear to have sufficient staff to justify their claim that they have allocated $27,000 for each book. Today, I want to look less at promises and more at results. In the interest of showing rather than telling, take a look at the video below: One of the services that Tate Publishing provides is that they create fifteen second spots like the one above and run them on cable networks. They promise 80,000 impressions. Or to state it another way, they promise that 80,000 people will see that commercial. Someone from Tate Publishing is welcome to correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they charge an additional fee for these commercials. The way I would expect this to play out is that each commercial will air one time with about 80,000 people watching. T...
Read more