Nearly 30 years ago, I taught at a Christian college in Florida. It was a great inspiration to the faculty when a distinguished scientist, Dr. A.W. Dicus, joined our number as academic dean. Dr. Dicus was a distinguished scientist, but had not found complete satisfaction in his work in a state university and decided that he wanted to devote part of his life to Christian education.

    Through the years that I worked under brother Dicus, he was a great source of strength and inspiration. As a young, inexperienced teacher, I could go to him for counsel and encouragement. I remember him as a disciple of Christ, a man of deep faith, and a man who expressed that faith in song. It was brother Dicus who wrote both the words and music of the song that is so popular in the church:

               “There is beyond the azure blue,

               A God concealed from human sight,

               He tinted skies with heavenly hue,

               And framed the worlds with his great might.

               There was, a long, long time ago,

               A God whose voice the prophets heard,

               He is the God that we should know,

               Who speaks from His inspired Word.

               Our God, whose Son upon a tree,

               A life was willing there to give,

               That He from sin might set men free,

               And evermore with Him could live.

               There is a God, He is alive,

               In Him we live, and we survive.

               From dust our God created man.

               He is our God, the Great I Am.”

    It is a source of spiritual strength to me to know these great words were written by a scientist. Brother Dicus died a few months ago, but he still lives whenever Christians sing, “There is a God….”

B.J. Humble

Borrowed from Merkel Messenger bulletin 9/11/1980

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