Glacier Races

Psalm 148:4-5
“Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that [be] above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.”

Life depends on what chemists call one of the most complex substances in the universe. This stuff refuses to act like other materials – and because it does, we are alive.

This odd material flows when it is solid, and its solid state is less dense than its liquid state. It can become a gas directly from a solid. Based on the expected behavior of matter, it should boil and freeze at much higher temperatures than it does. In addition, this substance conducts electricity in a very unusual manner – the usual method would not support life.

This mystery substance is ordinary water. If it didn’t float when it became a solid, most of the life in every lake in a cold climate would be wiped out every winter. Water’s unusual method for conducting electricity makes the processes of life possible within your cells. And water’s strange behavior as ice under high pressure causes glaciers to flow down hill. While many glaciers move at a rate of only one or two feet per day, one glacier was once clocked at 250 feet per day!

Every substance that God has created was made with special abilities and features to make life possible. This is yet another testimony that our Creator God’s attentions are focused upon us.

Prayer:
Dear Father in heaven, I thank You that all of the creation has been made by You with us in mind. Help me never to take Your love and care for me for granted. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Notes: “Ice on the rocks,” Harrold Morowitz, September, Science 82, pp.26-27. Photo: Holgate Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska. Courtesy of Beeblebrox. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.