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Today's Creation Moment

A Tinker Toy Fossil Embarrasses Scientists
Proverbs 12:20

Electric Avalanche

Matthew 24:27

Scientists have found that the usual explanation for lightning is not quite true. School children are taught that as a cloud moves through the air it picks up electrical charge because of turbulence. This eventually causes lightning.

But scientists have found that thunderclouds are able to generate only one tenth of the electrical Electric Avalanchefield that is necessary to create a lightning bolt. Without something else, there would be no lightning on Earth.

That something else turns out to be cosmic rays. Think of electricity as electrons flowing like water. While the cloud doesn't generate enough electrons to cause a flow of lightning, cosmic rays penetrating the cloud detach additional electrons from the oxygen and nitrogen in the cloud. These extra electrons are then accelerated in the cloud's electric fields, producing small avalanches of electrons. These avalanches grow and combine as they flow to the bottom of the cloud, finally to erupt as a stroke of lightning!

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is returning to Earth to judge all mankind. When He does, says the Bible, everyone will know about it because His return will be like a giant bolt of lightning crossing the entire sky. And just as the time to make yourself safe from lightning is before it strikes, so the time to find out how to be prepared to meet Christ is before He appears. The details of how He has made these preparations for you are found in plain and simple language in Scripture – which tells of His work of salvation. Begin your preparations now!

Lord Jesus, I eagerly await Your return to Earth. Yet, I know many people who are not ready for You because they do not trust in Your saving work for them. Use me to help them trust only in Your saving work for their salvation. Amen.
Lampe, David. 1978. "Lightning research strikes a windfall." Science Digest, Apr. p. 25. Photo: Lightning strikes during the eruption of the Galunggung volcano, Indonesia, in 1982.