Finding God’s Fingerprint

By Randy Knapp

I’m listening to the wind sing as it moves with signature sounds in eddies and vortexes around the eaves and corners of my house. It whistles past the branches of shrubs outside my window. It roars through the needles of the tall spruce tree in my front lawn. The sound of the wind is its fingerprint. Its character is distinguished without even seeing it, simply by listening to the pitch and timbre of its voice.

I have a collage hanging on the wall near my desk called The Alphabet in Lepidoptera. It is composed of individual photographs of patterns in the wings of butterflies and moths. Each pattern is distinct and clearly depicts the letters of the English alphabet, as well as the cardinal numbers. The patterns and colors in the scales of a butterfly’s wing distinguish its fingerprint.

Behind it all there is a pattern or a code. The code is encapsulated in the mode of interactions between the atoms and molecules that make up our universe. That pattern is the fingerprint of God.

Every species of tree has a distinctive shape dictated by the interactions of molecules that make up its genetic code. Every animal displays individual and distinctive characteristics. Without knowing the geographical location in the world it is easy to conduct a basic survey of the floral and faunal populations in the region to determine the specific global position with meticulous detail and even to establish the habitat’s elevation.

There was a time when I thought this all happened by random chance, but I’ve grown up now and I’ve put away my childish ways of thinking.

Every artist signs his paintings. The universe is a large canvas. Physicists and astronomers have gazed for decades through ever-expanding telescopes to find God among the stars. Most have failed to identify His signature. What they have yet to discover is that God is not “out there.”

God made a point of distinction when He sent Jesus to the earth. He wanted to make it clear that He is not separate from us. He gave His Son the name Emanuel to demonstrate that God lives within us.

He didn’t have to paint the English alphabet into butterflies’ wings in order to give them a selective advantage and thus propagate the species. He did it on a whim, because He liked how it looked and waited in eager expectation for people to discover His signature in the wing of an insect.

He did the same thing when He formed humankind out of the most basic atoms and molecules. He programmed his signature in our genetic code and displayed it in our very fingerprints. Now He’s sitting back with a grin on His face waiting in eager anticipation for each of us to individually discover the miracle.

God is an artist and an author. He sculpted our form, and then wrote the script that would make up our lives. He’s waiting for us to recognize His artistry and penmanship. When we do He can finally write the last line. Though there are twists in the plot and often moments of extreme suspense, each of His stories concludes with the same ending – “and they lived happily ever after.”

Randy writes from Medford, Oregon. knappsnest@msn.com