Seeing in Colour

“The heavens tell the glory of God, and the sky shows the work of his hands.” — from Psalm 19

On his days off, David collected plants, rocks and shells. Once he asked a quarryman how shells had got inside the rocks. The man just gave him a pitying look! But David never stopped asking questions.

David had grown up hearing about Jesus, and he knew that Jesus died to save us. But for a while he was troubled. He loved science, and some people said that a Christian should not study rocks and stars. Then he read a book by a Scottish minister named Thomas Dick, who taught that the whole world is God’s handiwork. David saw that he did not have to choose. The God of the Bible was the God of the rocks and the stars, too.

In his late teens, David began to feel for himself how much he needed Jesus, and he trusted him. Later he said it was like a colour-blind person suddenly seeing colours. Nothing new was there, but everything looked different. Full of God’s love, he decided to spend his life helping people who were suffering.

Then a missionary in China asked for doctors to come and heal the sick there. David made up his mind: he would become a doctor and go to China! He worked in the mill in the summer to earn the money, and in the winter he studied medicine in Glasgow.

But a war broke out between Britain and China, and the way to China was closed. Just then David met Robert Moffat, a famous missionary in southern Africa. Moffat remembered, years later, telling him to go north, to lands where no missionary had ever been. David said yes at once. In 1840 he became a doctor, and he was ready to go.

God made the stars and the rocks, and he made you. When you learn about his world, you can thank him for it. And when a door closes, God still knows the way.

Dear God, thank you for the stars, the rocks, the plants and the animals that you have made. Help me to see your love everywhere, and to use my life to help others. Amen.