None of us ever accomplishes a project perfectly on our first try.  Normally we have to do some “tweaking” to get things to work and often have to start all over. We call it the “trial and error” method. We keep trying until we get it right.  Thomas Edison was one of the most successful innovators/inventors in American history. He was called “The Wizard of Menlo Park.”  Early on he made a name for himself by improving the telegraph. His first patented invention was an electrographic vote recorder, but when he took it to Washington D.C. there was little interest in his device. He decided that from then on he wouldn’t invent things just to invent them. He needed to be able to sell them. He invented an electric pen which later led to the creation of the mimeograph machine and probably eventually the modern tattoo needle. He came up with ideas for the phonograph, assigning the rights to Western Electric Manufacturing Company. He also invented talking dolls and ore mills and separators.  But, it often took him many tries to get something to work.  In response to a question about his many failed attempts at developing the incandescent light bulb, Edison said, “I have not failed 10,000 times–I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work!”  He tried thousands of different materials before finding the perfect filament for the light bulb. 

     Kathy and I have been reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose, the account of Lewis and Clark’s historic expedition on behalf of President Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly purchased Louisiana Territory and find a waterway to the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean. In 1803, as part of the preparation for their expedition, President Jefferson and Lewis worked together to design a collapsible, iron-frame boat dubbed  The Experiment.  The frame was forged at Harpers Ferry, Virginia along the Potomac River. The plan was to pack the frame until they reached the Missouri River and then assemble it to help transport the explorers and their supplies on the journey up the Missouri. The frame of The Experiment  took up space that could have been given to trade goods, tools and food, but Lewis and President Jefferson felt it would be well worth it if it worked as  planned. Finally, near the end of June in 1805, Lewis and his crew, along the shores of the Missouri,  excitedly began assembling The Experiment.  On July 9, after holding up  their expedition for two weeks to assemble  the iron-frame boat, and to cover it with elk and buffalo hides and then waterproof it, they were ready to launch. Lewis “was counting on The Experiment to carry the bulky items to the Shoshone country at the source of the Missouri. He had a lot at stake. Lewis was exultant. But just as the expedition was about to become waterborne again, a violent wind came up, raising whitecaps on the river” (Undaunted Courage, p. 248). When the storm passed, Lewis discovered that the waterproofing composition had separated from the hides and left seams exposed and the boat was leaking like a sieve.  Lewis was devastated and, knowing they didn’t have time to waste continuing to work on “The Experiment,” very reluctantly abandoned their plan and buried the iron frame, along with a cache of letters and gear near the expedition’s camping spot on the Missouri.  (Note: The cache has yet to be discovered.)  

     In contrast to the efforts of even the most gifted humans (such as Thomas Edison and Meriwether Lewis) in developing new devices or methods of accomplishing tasks,  God–in His omniscience and omnipotence–always “gets it right the first time”!   When God created the heavens and the earth and all the plant and animal life and then Adam and Eve, He didn’t have to experiment until He succeeded in getting it right. At the end of each day of creation, we read: “And God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:10,12,18,21,25). And then, after creating Adam and Eve, “God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good” (v. 31).    When you examine anything in God’s amazing creation, you see such detail and complexity that there is no way anything could have survived if all the features hadn’t worked perfectly at the outset.  There is absolutely no way things could have evolved over eons of time through time and chance. Mankind, being created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26,27) has great creative capacities to discover and develop new things, but, being finite creatures,  we do so through the trial and error method. Edison, regarding his work on the light bulb, said, “It was a process that took me 10,000 steps!”  But, “As for God, His way is perfect…” (Psa. 18:30).  God makes no mistakes. He never fails to get it right the first time.  He said, “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it; I stretched out the heavens with My hands, and I ordained all their host…truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it” (Isa. 45:12; 46:11). 

     I’m so glad that also applies to salvation and God’s work in and through our lives.  The sin in the Garden of Eden didn’t take God by surprise, forcing Him to come up with “Plan B.”  God doesn’t ever have to have a “Plan B.”  He plans and He does it–period!  From before the foundation of the world, “He chose us in Christ” (Eph. 1:4).  God hasn’t been in a “chess match” with Satan. He has always been totally in control, carrying out His plans. The cross wasn’t a reactionary step that God had to take. It was His eternal plan for the redemption of mankind. Jesus Christ was not a “victim,” He was the “lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world” (Jn. 1:29; I Cor. 5:7; Rev. 5:6,12,13; 13:8).  God will never change His mind about us, thinking, “Boy, that was a mistake choosing him/her!”  He cannot make bad choices and never has to revamp His plan. That is why Paul claimed: “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).  The same is true for each of us who has trusted Christ for eternal life.   Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day, for this is the will of My Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (Jn. 6:37-40).  I’m not the object of an experiment, I am the recipient of the grace and mercy of a perfect Heavenly Father, who doesn’t use the “trial and error method,” but “gets it right the first time.”  Praise God!

     “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude 24,25). 

Forever His,

Pastor Dave