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