If you are looking for a birthday party to attend this afternoon, why not host one in honor of Thomas A. Edison. While you’re at it, celebrate all inventors because today is National Inventors Day. The date was chosen by President Ronald Reagan and inaugurated in 1983 to be celebrated on Edison’s birthdate.
Necessity is the mother of invention says the familiar proverb. That is probably true, however, you have to have an inventive mind to come up with the invention. My dad had this ability hand over fist, a trait that I did not inherit.
As a child, I remember him building his own grainery from scratch without blueprints or designers. He created an elaborate auger system with a lighted control panel to show what was happening in each auger. The individual augers were built by hand with thousands of holes drilled and bolts tightened with wrenches and sockets. Dad did all the welding. He wired the entire structure himself. When it was finished, it passed all inspections. And I cannot remember anything breaking. Ever!
When dad crossed over to woodworking, he taught himself how to draw up plans, read blueprints from Style Mark, or to build jigs and tools necessary to do a particular job. Many of dad’s jigs are still in the shop and I don’t have a clue what to do with them. It seems disrespectful to throw them away but all they are doing is collecting dust and were for a project that will never be done again. What a dilemma!
The creative, imaginative, inventive mind amazes me. Everywhere we look and everything we have came from a necessity that someone saw and was able to do something about it. If you’re reading this on your computer, think of all the technology that went into each component. How did anyone figure that all out? If you are reading this as a hard copy, someone invented paper millennia ago. Ink was invented. Pens were invented. You have your hard copy from a computer, printer, and copier machine.
We can trace all things back to God and His creation of the basic elements. But He gave people the smarts to DO something with those elements. I wasn’t one of them, but I sure am glad for those who were. I’m more than happy to use their inventions.
Of all the inventors in the world, who’s your favorite that you could celebrate today? How about Uzziah’s unnamed cunning men?
2 Chronicles 26:11-15 says, “Moreover Uzziah had an host of fighting men, that went out to war by bands, according to the number of their account by the hand of Jeiel the scribe and Maaseiah the ruler, under the hand of Hananiah, one of the king’s captains. (12) The whole number of the chief of the fathers of the mighty men of valour were two thousand and six hundred. (13) And under their hand was an army, three hundred thousand and seven thousand and five hundred, that made war with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. (14) And Uzziah prepared for them throughout all the host shields, and spears, and helmets, and habergeons, and bows, and slings to cast stones. (15) And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong.”
Where would the children of Israel have been without these inventions? And where might we be without the inventions of others. Praise the Lord today for the genius and ingenuity He bestows.
