Benjamin Franklin. Henry Ford. Thomas Edison. The Wright Brothers. Household names, sure. How about Jack Kilby? Ever heard of him?

You should have, but you probably haven’t. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Kilby died on Monday at age 81, after a distinguished engineering career, most notable for his invention of the integrated electronic circuit–better known as the microchip. It was for this invention that Mr. Kilby won the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000, more than 40 years later. If you’re reading this post on a computer (of course you are), enjoy an iPod, or do your homework on a calculator, you have Mr. Kilby to thank.

What lesson do I take away from this? It makes me think of common grace, which author and theologian Wayne Grudem, in his book Systematic Theology, describes like this:

“Common grace is the grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessing that are not part of salvation.”

Common grace is all around us. This is just one example. Where do you see common grace at work?

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