A Christ-centered Education, Part 6

© 2011 Vicki Lewis

A Christ-centered education involves asking good questions and then searching prayerfully for the answers. Here is an example of a Christian doing just that.

A man by the name of Matthew Maury is credited with being one of the founders of oceanography. He is known for identifying and charting the currents in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Just where did Mr. Maury get the idea that there were currents in these oceans?

Matthew Maury treated God as significant and important and as being present in his field of scientific inquiry. Remember that is part of our definition for giving glory to God.

Evidently, Mr. Maury was reading through Psalm 8 one day and came upon verses six through eight which say, “You made [man] ruler over all the works of Your hands...the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea.” As you read those verses what word is used that is similar to the idea of currents? Do you see the word “paths?” Mr. Maury believed that if God said there were paths in the seas, then it should be possible to find them.

That is exactly what he prayed about and gave his life to researching. God was faithful to show him the answers to his prayers. He located the currents in the Atlantic that move from east to west making sailing faster when sailors catch those “paths.” Traveling north in the Atlantic, sailors can catch currents that move swiftly from west to east, again making travel faster when a ship is moving along these “paths.” If such currents could be located in the Atlantic, then surely it would be worth looking for similar currents in both the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. Mr. Maury found those “paths” and made history by recording the currents for others to use.

Mr. Maury is known today because he took God at His word and discovered something interesting and wonderful about how God had designed the world.

If you go today to see his tombstone at the US Naval Academy, you can read for yourself the verses from Psalm 8 that set him on the path to discovering God’s design for the world’s oceans.

If we were to pray and ask God to show us wonderful things in His world that would benefit others, what might He be pleased to reveal to us? If we were to encourage that same inquiring heart attitude in our Christian children, too, what might God be pleased to demonstrate to the next generation? Perhaps abundantly more than we could ever think or imagine!