Modern detectives know to inspect crime scenes for fingerprints. Since every single human being has his or her own unique design, it is a surefire way to identify criminals if they left any behind.
It’s incredible to consider God’s ability to alter one basic design into over 8 billion variations in order to give each of us our own unique set. Interestingly enough He also makes each of us with our own tongue pattern as well as several other characteristics that we share with no other person. He’s still in the creating business!
As we think of these unique variations, let’s understand that God leaves fingerprints behind also. Perhaps not swirls and lines, but indicators that obviously identify Him as the only suspect.
Take, for example, fingerprints themselves. How could anyone or anything other than an almighty Creator produce DNA in such a way as to ensure that every person has their own unique pattern? Our faces are also distinctive which has inspired facial recognition technology. Even though identical twins may look similar, there are still differences that make each unique. Such incredible design is obviously a fingerprint of God.
Don’t tell me it just so happened. Physicists, biologists, and statisticians all tell us the odds against that are so great that it would never happen even in millions of universes. All through the natural world we see amazing design and purposeful planning.
Bees that just happen to need the nectar of certain flowers that just happen to grow in that area needing pollination by those particular bees. Mutually beneficial relationships between fish that could never have evolved together. Birds that migrate thousands of difficult miles to places they have never been. Scientists often use the word “instinct” to describe these abilities they can’t explain.
Our human bodies can process and utilize nutrients and chemicals produced in common fruits and vegetables to sustain daily life. Imagine if we were only able to derive enough energy from available foods to be active ten minutes per day or week. Imagine if there were only one energy source, like gasoline is for cars, that only existed at one place in the world.
Instead, God has provided an enormous variety of foods that our digestive systems can process and turn into useful energy. So much that we take for granted was preplanned, designed, and built by God for our benefit. His fingerprints of loving provision are all over His Creation.
In our daily lives, God moves in many ways that we sometimes call “coincidence.” Something “just so happened” at “just the right time” so as to appear miraculous. It was miraculous! We must open our eyes of faith and see the obvious fingerprints of God!
Did He lead you to your mate through some unusual “happenstance?” Did you find your job by a “stroke of luck?” Let’s take our blinders of humanism off and recognize the fingerprints of a loving God who works all things together for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).
When several churches in our community united to explore and develop what is now Family Promise of Shenandoah County, so many “fortuitous” events occurred, one would have to intentionally deny the clear and obvious hand of God to dismiss it.
In a similar way, as individuals and churches worked together to reinstitute Weekday Religious Education in county schools, God’s hand of blessing and favor has been unmistakable. I have a list of over 25 miracles that God did to bring this about. To miss one or two might be understandable, but when you examine all of them together, it’s impossible not to see God’s fingerprints on this ministry.
The next time you’re tempted to say something happened by accident or coincidence, look deeper to discover and appreciate the fingerprints of a compassionate and almighty God. They are everywhere!
Blessings, George