The Hidden Beauty of Creation
I admit it, I’m curious. God’s creation is meant to proclaim His divine nature and glory (Romans 1:20-21). Yet for most of mankind’s history, a great deal of God’s creation has been hidden. The only audience has been the Trinity and perhaps a few angels.
Images from Space
Only in the last 50 or 60 years have we found out what our world looks like from outer space. Before the invention of the rocket, space flight was an impossible daydream.
The first satellite, Sputnik 1, orbited the earth in 1957. Before the mid-20th century, no human had ever seen our planet. The Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first on April 12, 1961. Almost a decade later we finally started seeing color images from space taken by the Apollo astronauts.
Now the Internet shares YouTube videos from the International Space Station (ISS), teaching us how to water plants or wash long hair while floating in low gravity.
A Hidden 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 only became mass produced for colleges and schools in 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 device.
That’s only 81 years ago–within living memory. The 1st commercial scanning electron microscopes came on the market in 1965.
Macro Photography: Revealing Hidden Details
It turns out that even the creatures 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, photographers developed all sorts of techniques. One trick? Stick the captured insect in a refrigerator. The colder temperatures slow the insect’s metabolism down.
Sometimes photographers bring captured insects into the studio in order to highlight some unusual feature, like this bee’s ‘furriness.’
The Unseen World of Jacques Cousteau
People have been diving in the ocean for centuries, using primitive diving bells and helmets, 
but they couldn’t ever 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 underwater breathing tanks.
His television show, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau detailed the wonders of ocean life for ten years, starting in 1966. For the first time,
people could gaze at colorful coral reefs. We 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 magic of Cousteau’s undersea explorations. For thousands of years, very few human beings saw any of these amazing sea creatures.
Then suddenly we all did.
Why did God Make Large Chunks of His Creation Invisible?
It’s only been in my lifetime that humans have seen so much of God’s hidden creation
So why did He create such an exquisite “invisible world?”
Why keep it completely unknown to mankind for thousands of years?
I think I know the answer.
Perhaps our God is a true artist; maybe He created an unseen world of beauty and wonder simply because it delighted Him to do so.
Personally, at this late stage of human history, I’m glad He’s 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
A final word on bees having fur: 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 between plants.
