What was it that Wesley said? “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” I sense that kind of thing in very strange places at very strange times.

For example, I took this picture in Albuquerque’s National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. It’s the periodic table stretched out on the floor as you enter. When I walked in and saw it, I stood before it and worshiped. I worshiped because this is a consistent representation of created matter. As my granddaughter’s shirt says, “Never trust an atom; they make up everything.”

This table is the same everywhere: in Mr. Mester’s Advanced Chemistry room at Brookville High School, in classrooms at Pitt Bradford, in classrooms on the main campus, in the bio lab in Georgia, in the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque. And it would be the same (plus, perhaps, a few yet-to-be-discovered elements) on Mars.

This consistent representation of creation arouses something in my heart as it demonstrates the work of an intelligent, detail-focused God. I can’t explain it. It’s personal. I worship. I am stunned by its consistency and I appreciate the brilliance of the men and women who uncovered it.

Both the periodic table and the minds who put it on paper turn my heart to worship the One Who made it all.

As I have been reading the science on COVID-19 and watching academic videos of mRNA, I am finding my heart strangely warmed as well.

Though I never spent much time considering it, I used to assume that viruses were non-existent before the fall of humankind. Maybe. Viruses aside, I do think that bacteria were present in Eden. Otherwise, how would waste breakdown and return to the ecosystem? And if bacteria and viruses were present, our bodies would have to be able to protect themselves from infection. Say hello to the human immune system.

So as I’ve been researching, I’ve come to appreciate our immune system on a whole new level. Who knew that our antibodies coined what has become a sci-fi phrase, “Intruder alert”? And think of how perfectly and quickly they must have worked in the bodies of Adam and Eve – and those who lived in subsequent generations. Perfect bodies with perfect immune systems would zap viruses and bacteria without a second thought. No wonder the lifespan of those generations was ten times our own.

But the results of the fall are demonstrated all around us – even in these decaying bodies. So again, I am turned toward worship when I see the absolute brilliance of those who developed the mRNA technique. Who would have thought to have our bodies create, not the virus, but the virus’ means of attack so that our antibodies could be ready when the real thing shows up? Who would have thought to do that? Only those made in the image of God. Dogs, cats, dolphins – they may be smart, but….

The heavens declare the glory of God. And so do those things under the microscope — along with those peering into them.