Force

Why does a truck full of birds at rest weigh the same as the same truck with the birds in flight?  The birds are weightless in the air, right?  That’s why they don’t go splat.  Flying birds should make the truck weigh less.

Turns out it’s more complicated than that.  Birds fly (in part) because they exert force on the surrounding air that counterbalances their mass.  In short, if you blow on a scale hard enough, it will register as weight.  Not much weight, granted — but then, birds don’t weigh much.

An unseen force acting on the visible elements of the world, creating effects that we absolutely take for granted even though we struggle to find an intellectual foundation for them.  Sounds like Hal found another article idea on YouTube.

Seriously, though, think about it.  Conception (Psalm 139:16).  Gravity (Job 26:7).  The water cycle (Ecclesiastes 1:7).  Death (Psalm 90:10).  We can watch these events take place, and to a certain extent predict them.  But we cannot control them.  We can spout some gibberish that sounds intellectual and say, “See?  That explains it!”  In truth, the only reason we do not spend 24 hours a day scratching our heads is that we are not intelligent enough to ask the right questions.

Thankfully, we do not have to find someone qualified enough to make sure the sun comes up every morning.  As with everything else, God has that well in hand (Job 38:12-13).