A high school graduating class in California omits the invocation from its proceedings because of a law suit brought by three seniors who claimed the brief prayers would violate the "separation of church and state" clause of the Constitution. This is but one instance, part of a long-growing list, to be contained in a manual that our generation appears to be authoring: "How to Dismiss God from the Universe." To whom or what shall we ultimately be driven? What was the first tiny spark in the abysmal darkness? The first cause? The initial force? How did the universe come into being? Was it the handiwork of a great "Whom it may concern," or the climax of a colossal cosmic chaos? Read no farther than the first verse of the Bible: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

I remember having once spent several days meticulously fitting together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, only to have a leg under the card table collapse, dumping the puzzle all over the floor. It was one of those puzzles with a lot of autumn colors in it, and had been extremely difficult, if not exasperating to assemble. It would have been marvelous if I could have just sat down on the floor, gathered up all the scattered pieces, thrown the whole business up in the air and let them fall into their proper places on the floor. How many times do you think a person would have to throw the pieces in the air before they would finally come down fitted together to form the perfect picture? The chances of that ever happening are about as likely as the universe having "just accumulated" out of cosmic stuff, without design, without a creator.

All evidence, no matter how paltry, points to the same conclusion: the universe is designed! On the lowly end of the spectrum, the earthworms in an acre of soil can bring to the surface more than eighteen tons of earth. In twenty years, a new layer of topsoil three inches thick will have been created by worms, which also fill the soil with holes, allowing air to circulate freely. On the other end of the spectrum, take into account that the farthest detectable star from earth is ten billion light years away. There are stars beyond that but not within the scope of our instruments. Inasmuch as one light year equals six trillion miles, imagine the distance to the star ten billion light years away, and appreciate the testimony of Psalm 19:1; "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork."