Who thought this was a good idea? This morning's Wall Street Journal is reporting on the latest fashion craze: see-through purses. As examples, Saks Fifth Avenue will soon start selling $895 clear bags from Chanel and a $1,695 satchel from Dolce & Gabbana. The look is inspired by the requirement last August that airline passengers carry certain items in transparent plastic bags. Some people reveal themselves in blogs, others with Web cameras. Now women can show their inner selves through their inner purses.

I'm skeptical that the trend will catch on with guys. My briefcase carries my laptop, two or three books, and some magazines. Every day of the year. Janet says I'm boring. I yawn and agree. So would you, I'm sure.

There's another way to self-revelation, as today's New York Times reports. Scientists have used M.R.I. tests to identify the neurological processes which cause us to spend or save money. Scanning subjects while offering them chances to buy various items produced very clear patterns of neural responses, it turns out. Your nuclear accumbens, the brain region with dopamine receptors, is activated when you see something you want to buy. Your insula, the brain region which is activated when you smell or sense something painful, tells you when something shouldn't be bought.

Now we know that a lazy insula or overactive accumbens is the reason why your Christmas Visa bill is $10,000. My insula is telling me that see-through briefcases are a dumb idea. But my accumbens will get excited if I see a new iPhone in yours.

God was the first self-revealer in history. Creation reveals the Creator, in the same way that a landscape reveals the painter or a skyscraper tells us something about the architect. Yesterday we noted God's omnipotence as we surveyed the power of nature and the relative impotence of humans. Some frozen water on the roads basically shut down the Dallas area Sunday night. Now a cold snap is doing the same thing to California's citrus crop. For all our technological sophistication, we are helpless before such power.

Fortunately, creation also reveals the Creator's grace. He didn't have to make us with brains capable of inventing M.R.I.s and laptop computers. Someone has noted that if our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we'd be too simple to understand them. David could rejoice: "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). Your ability to read these words proves it. You are designed on purpose, for a purpose. Have you asked your Maker about yours yet today?

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