The Snowflake Man




“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, so that men are without excuse.”
Romans 1:20
Wilson Bentley was born on a small farm in rural Vermont on February 9th 1865. Little did he know how a microscope given to him by his mother at age 15 would start a lifelong obsession with snowflakes. He would spend the next two years of his young life trying to photograph a snowflake. On January 15, 1865 at the age of 19 he reached his goal and made the first photo-micrograph of a snowflake.
Whenever fresh snow began to fall Bentley would be seen rushing through the snowy country side with camera in tow as he frantically tried to isolate and photograph each tiny snowflake before it melted away into nothingness. His compassion earned him the nickname the snowflake man.
He would go on to photograph and catalog over 5000 pictures of snowflakes. Bentley was the first to recognize that no two snowflakes are identical and that most are six sided. He recognized that every crystal snowflake was a masterpiece of design and that no one design ever repeated itself. Once it melted away it was forever lost. Bentley lived to see his book “Snow Crystals” published in 1931 but died from pneumonia that same year after walking through a snow blizzard.
There are over 10 million snowflakes in a single cup and trillions fall in one snow storm. Yet, not one of them are identical. In Job 37:5-7 we find this amazing statement. “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow (snowflake) fall on the earth, and to the rain shower, be a mighty downpour, so that all men he has made may know his work.”
What does a snowflake teach us about the work of God? First, The snowflake has a design that never has a repeated pattern, no two snowflakes are identical. Just like the snowflake we are a one of a kind creation. Out of the trillions of humans that have passed through this earth since it’s beginning there has never been another you. No one in the past, present, or future, has ever had your exact fingerprints, voice-print, footprints, or even your iris-print.
If the world just came into existence randomly you would expect to see chaos in the universe but instead of chaos we see perfect order and design as in the snowflake. Where is the design and structure coming from? Why are there never a repeated pattern in a fingerprint or snowflake?
Skeptics have a hard time explaining why everything on earth is designed, tuned, and structured in perfect harmony without a creator. God is a God of order, Why does a snowflake have six corners, why not three, four, seven, or eight? Atheistic evolutionist would like us to believe that every different designed snowflake and fingerprint just randomly came about by chance. The changes of that happening would be like throwing a thousand pennies in the air and having them all come up heads, not once but each time you threw them up in the air. Only an intelligent creator is capable of order and design.
When we see a beautiful painting hanging in an art gallery we don’t question the fact that the painting is associated with an artist. Someone placed the exact colors side by side and created the brush strokes that all came together to produce their painting.
We would never question the fact that a painting had a designer. Yet, when we see the evidence of a heavenly designer in a beautiful sunset, a snowflake, the ocean, or any other of the beautiful scenes found in the earths landscapes we miss the existence of a grand artist. Why? If skeptics admitted there was a designer they would have to admit there is a God and that smells of Christianity which is the very thing they want to avoid.
When we look at the universe and everything associated with it we see design and order, some call this phenomenon the laws of nature but hiding behind each one of these laws stand the designer or creator.
No one would argue that DNA found in each and every one of us contains information. Information is different than energy or matter. It is similar to a software program in a computer. The DNA program identifies your sex, hair color, eye color, and it instructs all of your cells behavior. Just like it would be impossible for a computer to form itself from nuts and bolts over time so it is impossible for the DNA within us to form itself out of nothing. Behind every computer is an intelligent mind who designed and created its program. In the same way there has to be a intelligent mind that placed the code and wrote the script within our DNA.
So many skeptics ask where is God? Why can’t we see His presence? Why doesn’t He show himself to us? Isn’t there any visible evidence of Him? Yet, we have to look no further than one single snowflake falling silently down from the heavens or examine our own DNA to see our God and creator.
Christ understands us, he is always by our side cheering us on to climb that mountain, move on to a higher calling, don’t give up, ‘I have your back’. Jesus said in Luke 12:7 that even the very hairs of our head are all numbered. That’s how well he knows every intimate detail of our lives. He created us and He cares about our pain, our fears, our plans, and our thoughts. Each and every one of us are valuable to God and he has a plan for each one of our lives. David states in Psalm 139:13-15 that each one of us were fearfully and wonderfully made.
Everything within us, Everything we see in heaven and on earth are pointing us toward God. Until we recognize our creator there will always be a longing, a searching for something to give life meaning, nothing in this life will ever satisfy until we reunite our life with the creator of our soul.
Until then, the human heart will be on an everlasting quest for more. Our hearts will continue to burn within until we come home to our maker and hear the joyous sound of his voice saying---”Welcome home!”