God made the thumb

Continued from "Tortured for Christ"....

I met a Russian couple, both sculptors. When I spoke to them about God, then answered, "No, God does not exist. We are bezboshniki-- godless. But we will tell you something interesting that happened to us.

"Once we worked on a statue of Stalin. During the work, my wife asked me, 'How about the thumb? If we did not have an opposing thumb-- if our fingers were like our toes-- we could not hold a hammer, mallet, tool, book or piece of bread. Human life would be impossible without this little thumb. Now, who made the thumb? We both learned Marxism in school and know that heaven and earth exist by themselves. They are not created by God. So I have learned and so i believe. But if God did not create heaven and earth, if He created only the thumb, He would be praiseworthy for this little thing.

" 'We praise Edison and Bell and Stephenson who have invented the electric bulb, telephone, railway, and other things. But why should we not praise the One who has invented the thumb? If Edison had not had a thumb, he would have invented nothing. It is only right to worship God who made the thumb.' "

The husband became very angry as husbands very often do when their wives tell them wise things. "Don't speak stupidities! You have learned that there is not God. You do not know if the house is bugged. We can get into trouble. Get into your mind once and for all that there is no God. In heaven there is nobody!"

She replied, "This is an even greater wonder. If in heaven there is an Almighty God, in whom in stupidity our forefathers believed, it would then be only natural that we should have thumbs. An Almighty God can do everything, so He can make a thumb, too. But if in heaven there is nobody, I will worship with all my heart the 'Nobody' who has made the thumb."

So they became worshippers of the "Nobody"! Their faith in this "Nobody" increased with time, believing Him to be the creator not only of the thumb, but also of the stars, flowers, children, and everything beautiful in life. It was just as in Athens in earlier times, when Paul met worshippers of the "unknown God" (Acts 17:23).

This couple was unspeakably happy to hear from me that they had believed rightly, that in heaven there is really a "Nobody"-- God who is Spirit. He is a Spirit of love, wisdom, truth, and power, who so loved them that He sent His only begotten Son to sacrifice Himself for them on the cross.

They had been believers in God not knowing that they were so. I had the great privilege of taking them one step further-- to the experience of salvation and redemption.