I frequently engage with friends and colleagues who, when I speak about the Lord, respond with a question that goes something like, “well, how can I know that God is in the world?” To me that is an entirely reasonable question and of course the answer can involve many aspects. But both the Bible and God’s creation contain many remarkable instances where God’s sovereignty over his creation is displayed. I’d like to share just a few with you that I marvel over.

The Book of Job, possibly one of the earliest biblical books to be written, contains some fascinating texts where God almost demonstrates to Job that He, and He alone, has the power to control the uncontrollable, and in the time of Job, the unknowable aspects of creation.

God describes his control of the stars

In Job 38:31- 33, God says to Job:

“Can you direct the movement of the stars,
binding the cluster of the Pleiades
or loosening the cords of Orion?
Can you direct the constellations through the seasons
or guide the Bear with her cubs across the heavens?
Do you know the laws of the universe?
Can you use them to regulate the earth?”Orion's belt

Pleiades is an open star cluster, first discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, consisting of hundreds of stars within a single cosmic cloud. A gravitational attraction holds them together, like a flock of birds, as they move in a south-easterly direction (as we know it). Quite remarkably these stars travel together at the same speed and they stay together, defying scientific expectations. Only God can bind together the cluster of Pleiades.

In contrast Orion’s belt consists of three elements: two stars – Alnilame and Mintaka – together with a triple star cluster – Alnithi. Again, remarkably, the two stars (situated to the left) are closing together, but the star cluster (situated to the right) is stretching apart. So, Orion’s belt is loosening, slowly but steadily – its cords are being loosened.

Finally, in these brief verses Arcturus is a super bright sight, that was identified, in 1971, as actually comprising an additional 52 stars, the cubs.¹

As God challenges Job to control these aspects of the stars, he is demonstrating that he alone has the power to do this.

God holds the oceans in his hands

Earlier, in Job 28:25, God has spoken to Job about the ”pathways of the deep”. These tidal pathways were only discovered in the 1850s by Matthew Maury, an American naval captain, also a Christian, who came to be known as the ‘Pathfinder of the Seas’, a term taken from Psalm 8:8. Maury also challenged the prevailing view that the sea floor was a flat modulating floor oceanic prairie that stretched unending across the oceans. Incidentally, it was his discoveries that paved the way for subsea communication cables, that today connect our global internet.Studies by Andrew Fisher and colleagues have shown that seamounts provide conduits through which enormous quantities of water flow between the ocean and the rocks beneath the seafloor. Image credit: U.C Santa Cruz

The Book of Job returns to an aquatic theme in Job 38:16, when Job is rhetorically asked “Have you explored the springs from which the seas come? Have you explored their depths?”

It wasn’t until 2003 that Professor Andrew Fisher discovered springs at the bottom of the deep ocean, and it took much further study to discover where these springs came from and how they worked. Yet here is God laying out to Job these deep-sea marvels.

26 seconds

It is also in the ocean that I recently discovered another mysterious and intriguing phenomenon that may be an obvious indication of God’s presence in his creation.

Every 26 seconds, the earth shakes. The movement is barely noticeable, but seismologists on every continent register a measurable blip on their sensors every 26 seconds. This pulse, or micro-seism as geologists call it, was first detected in the early 1960s by a young researcher called Jack Oliver. He was working at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory at Columbia University. Tracking the pulse over a period of time, he calculated that the pulse originated somewhere in the southern, or equatorial, Atlantic.²

The research lapsed and was lost for a number of years until 1980 when Gary Holcomb, a US Geological Survey geologist, once again delved into the ‘mystery’ and identified that it is at its strongest during storms. Again, the research lapsed, this time for 25 years, until 2005 when Greg Bensen, a graduate at the University of Colorado, rediscovered the pulse. He was perplexed and examined it from every angle. He wondered whether there was an error in his instruments, or an earthquake somewhere. Eventually the pulse was tracked down to the Gulf of Guinea, just off Africa’s west coast. Later research tied it to the Bight of Bonny.

The speculation around the source of this pulse is intense. Some speculate it is caused by wave action, others dormant volcanoes. But the question remains, what is it and why here?

It is the 26 seconds that grabbed my attention.

Hebrew, along with Greek, is a language where letters represent numbers. Additionally, Hebrew is a language consisting exclusively of consonants. (I have often reflected how the Israeli version of Countdown might work!) What this all means is that when you write a Hebrew word you automatically create a numerical value for the word.

YHWH, or Yud, Heh, Vav, Heh, the name that God gave to Moshe at the burning bush, comprises letters with the following numerical values:
Yud = 10
Heh = 5
Vav =  6
Heh = 5

The numerical value of YHWH is 26. A pulse that slightly, subtly, shakes the earth every 26 seconds might just be a small reminder of God’s name to his creation.

When I reflect on this, I am reminded of John 13:23, when the disciple Jesus loves, who we believe was John, laid with his head on the Lord’s chest. This signifies a close relationship, a similar relationship to that which Job had. That closeness of relationship for John was so close that John could hear the Lord’s heartbeat. If only we could hear that same heartbeat. Then I think that maybe, just maybe, these rhythmic micro-seisms that pulsate every 26 seconds is a reminder of that heartbeat, a reminder that Almighty God controls all the natural functions of our planet.

Alternatively, could this simply be God’s signature that he added to his creation, just like an artist signs their painting. What other signs of God might we be missing in our world?

Notes

¹Is The Astronomy In The Book Of Job Scientifically Consistent? by J. Warner Wallace, Cold Case Christianity, 17 August 2018

²The Earth Is Pulsating Every 26 Seconds, and Seismologists Don't Agree Why, by Anna Funk, Discover Magazine, 27 October 2020