The Hidden Beauty within Creation
I admit it, I’m curious.
If God’s creation is meant to proclaim His nature and His glory (Romans 1:20-21), why has so much of it been out of sight?
For most of mankind’s history a great deal of God’s creation has been unseen by us. The only audience has been the Trinity and perhaps a few angels. 
For thousands of years, no human being viewed our planet from outer space, gazed into a microscope or imagined the bizarre and beautiful creatures living in the ocean’s depths.
Images from Space
We began launching satellites only in the last half of the 20th century. The first satellite Sputnik 1 orbited the earth in 1957. Before the mid-20th century, no human had ever seen our planet from high altitude. The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first on April 12, 1961. It was almost a decade later before we started seeing color images from space taken by the Apollo astronauts. Now the Internet shares YouTube videos from the International Space Station, depicting how to water plants or wash your hair in low gravity.
The Secret Microscopic World
Anton van Leeuwenhoek invented the first true microscope in the 1600s. He drew detailed pictures of everything he observed, including bacteria and the strange living creatures found in a drop of water. 
But modern classroom microscopes didn’t start to be mass produced for colleges and schools until the 1930s.
In 1937 Leitz started producing a new photomicroscope system which captured photos of microscopic algae, insect larvae and plant cells better than any previous equipment.
That’s only 81 years ago–within living memory. The 1st commercial scanning electron microscopes came on the market in 1965.
Macro Photography
It turns out even many things we did see in our natural world, we didn’t see clearly. Macro photography uses special camera lenses to capture extreme close-up images. For fast moving creatures such as insects, all sorts of techniques and tricks have been developed to slow them down, such as a brief stay in the refrigerator.
Sometimes the photographer even brings captured insects into the studio in order to highlight some unusual feature, like the furriness of this bee.
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau
People have been diving in the ocean for centuries, using primitive diving bells and helmets, 
but they couldn’t go deep or take photos of what they saw.
In the winter of 1942-1943 French Naval Lieutenant Jacques Cousteau and engineer Emile Gagnan invented the Aqua-Lung or “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus” (SCUBA). Because this new invention helped divers stay underwater much longer, the Aqua Lung quickly became popular, out-selling all other rival underwater breathing tanks.
His television show, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau detailed the wonders of ocean life for ten years, starting in 1966. The public for the first time
explored colorful coral reefs and learned interesting facts about stingrays, starfish, whales, sharks, sea turtles and other sea creatures in their natural habitat. A second documentary series, The Cousteau Odyssey aired from 1977 to 1982. For many of us it was the first time we saw underneath the ocean’s surface. Public aquariums had existed since a few years before the American Civil War, but nothing beat the excitement and magic of Cousteau’s filmed undersea explorations. For thousands of years, very few human beings saw any of these amazing sea creatures.
Then suddenly we all did.
Why Make These Parts of Creation Invisible?
It’s only been in my lifetime that so much of God’s hidden creation has started to be seen by all of us.
So why did He create such an exquisite “invisible world” and yet keep it completely unknown for thousands of years?
Maybe it’s because our God is a true artist. He created an unseen world of beauty and wonder simply because it delighted Him to do so.
20 His invisible attributes—His eternal power and His divine nature—have been clearly seen ever since the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made. So people are without excuse— 21 for even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. Instead, their thinking became futile, and their senseless hearts were made dark. (Romans 1:20-21 TLV)
At this late stage of human history, I’m glad He’s now given all of us “eyes to see.”
All images are from Pixabay.com.
Resources:
Episodes of The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau are available on YouTube.
Just click on this link: Jacques Cousteau
Final word on the furry bee question: I spoke with one of my co-workers who is a beginning bee keeper. She and her husband took courses about how to set up a hive, establish a bee colony and collect the honey. According to her information, bees are fuzzy because it helps them spread pollen more efficiently and fertilize other plants.
