“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” (Psalm 139:14, ESV)
The human body is an amazing thing. Yes, it goes wrong and degrades as we get older, but in the main it is incredible how well it all works. There is so much going on all the time – heart pumping, nerves firing, lungs breathing, intestines digesting, and many other functions besides.
The eye is just one small part of us that quietly gets on with doing so much without us even thinking about it. Yes, many of us experience problems with our vision, but the fact is that the human eye is still an amazing piece of kit.
Despite their tiny size, our eyes are capable of focussing on objects near and far in great detail at amazing speed. To capture the full range of what we can see would require many many different camera lenses, not to mention the difficulties of achieving on a photo the range of colours and contrasts our eyes can cope with.
If you have a camera, try taking a clear, accurate picture of a close up object, something far away, in bright sunlight, in a dark room, looking at a night sky and underwater (don’t try this at home!) all without changing the lens or settings. Even if you can manage a reasonable focus for some of these, you just can’t do them all without changing something more radically – e.g. adding flash, macro lenses, waterproof casing, etc.
Your eyes are just one small part of you and look how well they can handle so many varied situations compared to our technology. It is not easy to match mechanically and electronically what our bodies can achieve. We are developing new technologies all the time which get closer, but none are quite as effective as our bodies.
Your brain stores unbelievable amounts of data, without you even trying. Just to read this article you are remembering many details – language structures, vocabulary meaning, decoding the marks into words, etc. You are the most fantastic creation ever!
Sometimes life can make us feel like we have little worth. We might be struggling as parts of us don’t work as well as they used to. Yet, we are still great creations – so much more than any machine. Our bodies remind us of the greatest designer of them all: God.
Humans are the only entities in the universe not only to carry the image of God in us, we are the only life-form that God has chosen to become; in Jesus, God became man.
No person is ever worthless. All of us are wonderfully made. Even when things go wrong, we are still incredible creations – better and more valuable than any machine. Human life is amazing and worth praising our Creator for.
© Joe Lenton, September 2012