What do the long times spans of the earth and the universe tell us about being a human loved by God in the here and now?
Too many podcasts too little time. Thanks for publishing the transcript, considering my poor hearing
Excellent read to put things into perspective. I like the emphasis on miracles to be: “Miracles are signs and wonders that testify to God’s glory”, not shortcuts for quick fixes, as, as an engineer, I might be impatient but I appreciate the thorough attention to detail that make a quality repair, something that does not just look nice but works and lasts.
I use the miracle of turning water into wine to explore how we look at miracles. What is so impressive in making instant wine, e.g. speeding up the industrial process of making wine. We could appreciate the assembly of the ingredients and looking what is the importance of the base ingredients - like with your sourdough. (note here, its not the yeast that makes the sourdough but the ability of the different cultures in the dough not to outcompete each other but to love one another like thyself). However when we do so we might wonder if the process would add value to them or waste / spoil them, like someone wasting the raw materials for effect. Do we think there is more value in the raw material, e.g. the water of ritual cleansing that cleanses you before God - or in the wine used to entertain greedy party goers, as fine as the wine might be. Would the miracle be to accept this clear and unspoilt water as the the most valuable wine you could ever drink - or the ability to create a fake reality for the sake of human expectations and to show power over the molecular structure of matter? It probably depends on what God one has in mind 
“And I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to perform signs and wonders if there are no people around who appreciate that.” is an odd statement. The artist creates his art usually with no people around him that appreciate it - historically most artists were dead by the time their work was appreciated - and yet they created it. It is a problem of modern times that people struggle and go mental when the impact is not here and now - if they don’t get instant likes on Twitter. What has changed?
Typo in about the 10th paragraph of the transcript. Where it says “about 8 million of us now”, I think it should say 8 billion.
It tells us that God does not mind taking His time in seeing His work coming to completion. A comforting thought for some of us, who came somewhat late to the finish line.
A second thing, God is using processes that can be understood by humans, who then get a glimpse of the power and vastness of His understanding, establishing both the laws of nature and providing the energy that fueled the process. Creating a template into which He could breath life, Amazing.
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The thing about Japanese art reminded me of a display I once saw where an artist painted a scene of some trees overhanging a pond. He spent several minutes doing everything but the trees and the pond, then in the last ten or fifteen seconds he placed the pond and then the trees. I kept wishing that for comparison he would have done one that was just pond and trees so we could compare the difference between the version with deep, meticulous background preparation and the one that went straight to the subject.
On a TV show I watched some time later there was another artist who took a long time making the background, then picked up a tiny rag and by picking up pigments from what was already there he put in a cabin by a stream, with smoke coming from a chimney – he didn’t even use new paint, just dabs of what was already present!
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