What the Storm Already Knew

In June of 1752, Benjamin Franklin walked into a gathering thunderstorm outside Philadelphia with a silk kite, a hemp string, an iron key, and a question that had consumed him for years: Was lightning actually electricity? As dark clouds rolled overhead, Franklin and his son William launched the kite skyward. For long minutes, nothing happened. Then Franklin noticed the loose fibers of the hemp string beginning to stand erect, repelling one another as if charged by an unseen force. He pressed his knuckle to the iron key and felt the unmistakable sting of an electrical spark.

The world celebrated Franklin as a genius. But here is what we must not miss: Franklin did not create electricity. He did not invent lightning. He simply proved what had been true since the first bolt split the ancient sky. The power was always there — invisible, immeasurable, coursing through every storm that had ever rolled across the earth. Franklin merely opened his eyes to what creation had been declaring all along.

Paul writes in Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — His eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made." Every natural law a scientist uncovers is a footnote in a book God already wrote. The question for us is not whether the evidence is there. The question is whether we, like Franklin standing in the rain with string in hand, are willing to pay attention to what creation has been saying all along — that behind every force, every law, every wonder stands the hand of the Almighty.