Maxwell’s Prayer

Psalm 90:12
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

The great scientist James Clerk Maxwell, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, was certainly no friend of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Even so, the staunchest evolutionists today would agree that Maxwell was a scientist of gigantic proportions, ranking right up there with celebrated scientists like Sir Isaac Newton.

In a previously aired Creation Moments broadcast, we told you that Maxwell believed that Jesus Christ is the Savior who came to deliver humanity from the results of sin. We also mentioned that a writing of his, found after his death, stated that the motivation for his work was that God had created all things just as Genesis says. And since God created humans in His image, scientific study is a fit activity for one’s lifework.

But Maxwell’s heart for God is expressed most clearly in a prayer he wrote that was found in his notes after he died in 1879 at the young age of 48. The rest of today’s broadcast is in Maxwell’s own words:

“Almighty God, Who hast created man in Thine own image, and made him a living soul that he might seek after Thee, and have dominion over Thy creatures, teach us to study the works of Thy hands, that we may subdue the earth to our use, and strengthen the reason for Thy service; so to receive Thy blessed Word, that we may believe on Him Whom Thou hast sent, to give us the knowledge of salvation and the remission of our sins. All of which we ask in the name of the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I pray that You would give more scientists the faith that guided men like James Clerk Maxwell. Help them to see science as studying the works of Thy hands. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Author: Steven J. Schwartz
Ref: Cited in E.L. Williams and G. Mulfinger, Physical Science for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University Press, Greenville, South Carolina, 1974, p. 487. Photo: The James Clerk Maxwell Monument in Edinburgh. Courtesy of Kim Traynor. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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