As a teenager, I convinced my parents that I should join their 25th wedding anniversary trip. They were travelling to a land of over a billion people so I figured one more (or two, since my friend also accompanied us) was hardly noticeable. We crossed the ocean with a suitcase full of ventriloquist puppets and landed with astonishment during a protest at the international airport in Bangalore, India.

My memories of the trip remain vivid and colorful: the pungent smells, incessant sounds, opulent patterns—a beautiful, complex country. Surrounded by the blaring horns and brilliant colors, I felt a heavy spiritual darkness that confronted differently than the Canadian culture’s stifling pursuit of self. In India, I saw idols of wood and stone. I heard the Muslim call to prayer and the sounds of frequent Hindu festivals. We drove past people, rich and poor, trapped in rituals of fear and obligation. Whenever we returned to the Christian orphanage home, I was relieved because the peace of Christ was tangible in contrast to the oppression of evil.

One early morning, my dad and I joined some boys from the orphanage home to climb Kubbal Hill. Our hike ended at a temple where I stared into an idol’s unblinking, cold eyes. The image was clothed in a saree with untouched food by its side. Guarded by two stone lions, a bell hung ready to rouse this god from slumber. What a stark contrast to the One who fashions eyes and neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalms 94:9; 121:3–4)! This idol’s temple was built on a mountain created by the God I serve (Psalm 121:2).

From a verbal command, complexities were created that lifetimes are spent researching and exploring. Where were you, vaporous man (and your cherished idol), when God “laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4).

Consider the superiority and magnitude of the Uncreated One’s voice speaking “and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). From a verbal command, complexities were created that lifetimes are spent researching and exploring. Where were you, vaporous man (and your cherished idol), when God “laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4). How devastating that men’s intellect attempts to explain away creation through the winding tale of evolutional process!

Recently, I was reading in the Psalms about the Lord’s laughter (Psalms 2:4; 37:12–13; 59:8). If the sound of his voice created the world—how terrifying must his laughter be! The powerful evil and careless destruction of the wicked is not something God is anxious about. He is in control and unalarmed by the plans of futile man.

Even my own well-intentioned plans are not excused from God’s sovereignty (James 4:13-15). Once I have surrendered my will to his, I find comfort in knowing his thoughts and plans are higher than my own short-sighted expectations (Isaiah 55:9). “Among the gods there is none like you, Lord; no deeds can compare with yours. All the nations you have made will come and worship before you…. For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God” (Psalm 86:8–10).