Articles
The Great Artist
During the fall season the soul longs to be outside amidst the palette of the Great Artist. Living in Florida for the greater part of my life, I missed out on the colors of the more northern autumn. In Florida, everything stays green except the sparse Sycamores and Maples transplanted from other regions. In truth, the South can in no ways parallel the North in autumn variation and splendor due to a climate adverse to color change.
Doing a little research online, one can discover the reason for this change and for the difference between the two regions. You see, leaves are typically green because of the abundance of a component known as chlorophyll. As the days grow shorter, less light causes significant reductions in chlorophyll and reveals the true pigmentation of each plant. These pigmentations are caused by a host of chemicals and pigments – the main ones being tannins (providing a brownish color), anthocyanin (providing a red color), carotenoids (providing an orange-yellow color). What is interesting is that the leaves will also vary each day depending on temperature and light exposure. Sunny days will provide for the most spectacular light displays, whereas overcast days will cause the leaves to be more yellow or brown in color.
Reflecting on all of this chemistry, one cannot help but to reflect on the majesty of God as Creator. God did not just create; He created extravagantly. He gave mankind the ability to recognize that beauty as well! A couple years ago, I had a conversation with Dee Bowman, an evangelist from Texas, and he postulated that our ability to comprehend the beauty of Creation was the foremost argument for the existence of God. In many ways, I feel this is a correct assessment. If you don’t believe that, take a short drive and see the sun over the foothills and all of the vast array of color amongst the trees. Michael Behe, writer of Darwin’s Black Box, draws out this pristine beauty when discussing the absurdly complicated process by which a single image is processed on entering the eye. His summary was that there must be a God.
God wants us to appreciate what He created. In the Garden, the Bible says that God created every tree to be pleasing to the sight and to the palate (Gen. 2:9). If we might rephrase Hebrews 3:4 in light of this theme, we could say, “Every [artwork] has an [artist] and the [Artist] of all [artwork] is God." Take the time to look around and appreciate that craft of the wise master architect and painter.
