The Footsteps of God – Sunday, April 27, 1980
We have heard the choir herald spring’s return, and our thoughts turn once again to the divine origin of this invigorating season. Is there a God in the heavens? Surely the answer is self-evident when we observe the miracle of spring.
Watch the crocus bloom and the fruit buds burst. Absorb the colorful spectrum of tulip beds. Marvel in the realization that 300,000 species of flowering plants color our existence . . . over half-a-million plant species in all. And recall the Lord’s promise, when he said, “. . . I will show thee the workmanship of mine hands.”1 Surely to observe the glories of nature is to verify the existence of a superior power.
We see the footsteps of God during this season of the year. He reveals himself constantly through unfailing natural laws which explain both the mysteries and the wonders of our world. We observe the orderly process of plant growth and reproduction; the complexity involved in the growth of a single, simple plant; the beauty of flowers, exceeding anything produced by even the greatest genius among men. And we observe God through the natural law of inheritance. . . the ways in which plants reproduce after their own kind, unfailingly.
Is it not beyond comprehension to believe that a mechanism 10,000 times more intricate than any man-made device could be self-constructed and self-developed? Could the complex plant world around us really have risen by chance?
According to a noted scientist, “to deny a Great Designer is quite as illogical as to admire a magnificent field of yellow, waving grain and at the same time to deny the existence of the farmer in the farmhouse by the roadside.”2
Yes, there is order. There is beauty. There is harmony. There is dependableness as we observe the growth processes during the spring season. And as our scientific knowledge of the world around us increases, a more critical evaluation and appreciation of theology is inevitable. No wonder our religious faith is bolstered by the spring season and our spiritual strength renewed.
1 The Pearl of Great Price, Moses 1:4.
2 Dale Swartzendruber, “Wonders of the Soil,” The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1958, p.191.
“The Spoken Word” heard over KSL and CBS from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Utah, April 27, 1980 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, Eastern Time Copyright 1980 Bonneville Productions
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April 27, 1980
Broadcast Number 2,645