A few years ago I became familiar with a book entitled Snow Crystals, a long out-of-print volume of coauthors W. A. Bentley and W. J. Humphreys. My fascination was not only with the title,
but the nature of this work, which consisted of 23 pages of introduction and nearly two hundred pages of photographic plates with over two thousand images of snowflakes.
At the time, the only copies for sale were used, and very expensive. But now the work has been republished, both in paperback and digital editions. Bentley spent nearly fifty winters in Vermont carefully capturing, preserving, and photographing snowflakes and ice crystals, beginning in the late 1800’s with very primitive equipment, a true labor of love in black and white.
Today, other books using more powerful magnification, backlighting, and cameras are available, rendering even more spectacular photographs of snow crystals, each unique, delicate, short-lived, and beautifully crafted beyond belief.
Reading the reviews of such books, I’m struck with the sense of wonder people have at “nature,” “Mother Nature,” and “nature’s architecture,” and saddened by the absence of any references to God’s creative abilities and propensities.
But for believers who, through Jesus, know the God who created all things, the common snowflake is both a tribute to His glory and a window to His nature. He could have made all snowflakes alike, but He chose a method by which the billion crystals that make up a single cubic foot of snow are different, even though they all follow the same six-sided symmetrical structure.
Similarly, a little research shows that there are more than 5,000 species of mammals, over 10,000 species of birds, at least 30,000 species of fish, and nearly 100,000 species of insects, each individual different. That doesn’t even account for the reality that 99 percent of all species that ever lived are extinct!
And when we turn our eyes upward and outward, we are met with a similar display of creativity in the estimated 100 billion galaxies in our universe, and the same number of stars in our own galaxy, again, with no two identical. No wonder the heavenly host sang for joy (Job 38:7) at their creation.
May God open our eyes to His glory and His joy in being God, and in turn help us to enjoy and worship Him in both His holy solemnity and (dare we say) His delightful playfulness!
“Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name;
by the greatness of his might
and because he is strong in power,
not one is missing.”
Isaiah 40:6