Confrontation

I don't know how you feel about confronting people on their beliefs, but please realize that if you don't tell them what they need to hear the chances are, nobody will. Last week, I submitted a binder full of essays and a poem into the ABA's Young Birder of the Year contest (birds are a serious hobby of mine), and I tried to tailor each piece to clearly reflect my faith. At first I questioned this approach. "What if I offend someone, and decrease my chances?" But then I remembered that Christians are not called to blend in and simply tell the world what it wants to hear. I wrote a poem that directly and unashamedly questions the prevalant evolutionary worldview of our day, addressed specifically to bird-lovers. Forgive my freestyle approach to poetry, all I wanted to do was communicate a message.

This Must Be God’s Hand
Benjamin Berkompas, September 23, 2007


No one can truly understand what they see every day,
Although they think they grasp the meaning, the purpose, the end,
They merely grasp the wind, and are themselves
Swayed by every gust that comes from mans’ mouth
Until they humbly bow and recognize
That only One could have done this.

Some point their finger to the sky and stare
At swirling swallows gliding overhead,
Feathers glistening emerald and violet in the light,
But never once do they entertain the thought
That perhaps they have been lied to,
Perhaps they have been wrong.

Could that sparrow on the housetop,
Or that heron in the marsh, or the tiny brown
Wrens that fill the woodland with their song,
Or the dove that sits supinely in the sun,
Could all this be chance, the mere random work of time
An accident?

How can you believe that when you look across a lake
And through the mist discern a mother loon with her young,
Cooing and tenderly caring for their needs,
Or watch a hawk poised alert above a silent field,
Eyeing the grass intently, sensing all movement.
How can you believe that this just happened?

Such intricate beauty, such perfect design
Can it truly be mistaken for random chance and time?
If you still can’t understand, are yet blind to the truth
Find a single feather and hold it to the light;
Each hair dyed a subtle hue, barbs interlocking along a single vein,
Can you ask a clearer sign, or can you not yet see?

What have they told you, why will you not question
All the things you have assumed for years?
You may yet live in a world of man’s imagining,
Blind to the truth that the air that you breath
And the birds that you love are truly nothing less
Than God’s gift from above.

Though truth shines throughout all Creation some refuse to see
That only through design could come such complexity.
You will not know the truth, you will not understand
Until you humbly say, “This must be God’s hand.”
I can leave you with but this one thought,
You and all God’s creatures are part of His eternal plan.