Believing God -- Week 2

Well here we are, having completed our second week of this awesome study! I am so anxious to see what others are pulling from the Word and this lesson!


A special thank you to Lidna Linda at 2nd Cup of Coffee for hosting this week's discussion on her blog. Be sure and stop by and post a comment about this study, too (you know, like after you post one here!) :-)


Many of the things discussed in this week's homework are some of the very things that excite me the most when I consider the wondrous works of God...and therefore consider the wonder of Him!


In offering us a sliver of understanding as to who God is as He first introduces Himself in Scripture, Beth had us focus for a bit on the aspect of Creator God. She shared with us what she learned about the "improbability of the Earth's possessing all of the necessary conditions to support life by chance." From the book The Source, she quoted the "Estimated Odds of Selected Variables Vital to an Earth-like Planet Occurring by Chance."


Translation: An educated guess regarding whether it would even be possible for a planet like ours to haphazardly support life...based on just a few variables that would be absolutely necessary for said life. In other words, there are still other conditions that would need to be met; we're just looking at a few. Whew. Clear as mud, right?


So before our heads explode...the probability was 1 in 150 (and insert 15 zeros behind it!) that a planet with those qualifications could possibly come about! I don't even know what you call a number like that!! For the sake of apologetics, let's all keep in mind that probability in itself is a scientific measurement....hmmm. You mean Science actually supports the belief that the world was probably created? Hmmmm...


Beth also shared with us how complex and intricate a single cell with a nucleus actually is...as opposed to Darwin's limited understanding of the cell to be a simple, protoplastic cream-filled donut. Or something like that.


Well when I read about the cell and how much we now know to be true about the little machines that are inside every single cell, it reminded me of a program that I just went through called The Truth Project.


Some of you may have heard of it before, and I could easily write six months' worth of posts just from what I learned from it, so I won't go into a lot of detail about it here. But I do want to share one thing that Dr. Del Tackett taught that falls right in line with who God is as Creator.


He challenges the students to examine a chicken egg. Yes, you read that right. Stay with me on this, because this is good stuff.


He said that the eggshell has 10,000 pores in it. Just inside the shell is a membrane, and inside the membrane are four vessels. Two of the vessels connect the chick to the yolk for food and waste; and the other two connect the chick to the membrane. One of the vessels allows air to get from the outside to the chick, the other allows the CO2 gases to escape so the chick doesn't die.


Basically, if the egg had any less than 10,000 pores, then the chick would not receive enough air and would die. If it had any more, then the shell would be too brittle and would not survive incubation. Imagine that...the egg shell has exactly the right amount of holes in it! I wonder exactly how long an egg would have to experiment, under Darwin's theory of evolution, to get the right amount of pores so the chicks would quit dying?? Hmmm...


Wait, it gets better!


Around Day 19 of incubation, the chick becomes large enough that the amount of air it is receiving is no longer sufficient. So it begins to peck. Oh, but it can't get out right away, so do you know what our Creator God did? He's such a genius.

Have you ever boiled an egg, and when you went to peel it found an air pocket at the top (or bottom, depending on how you look at it)? I used to think that happened as a result of the boiling. Oh, no, sweet thang, our God is so thoughtful....

That little chick somehow knows that that pocket of air is there. Yep. And that's what it goes for at first. In fact, our God even provided each little chick with it's own pecking tool on its beak! It's called an "egg tooth" and it falls off after about two weeks.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

So our little chick gets to that little pocket of air, which, by the way, has about six hours' worth of air in it. Just enough time for the very cramped baby to work its way out of the hard shell. Hmmmmm...I wonder how many chicks would die trying to get out because, under Darwin's theory, they didn't have enough air. How would the species have even survived that many takes? Just a thought.

See? I told you it was worth hanging in there for. And friend, that's just a chicken egg. One species of untold bazillions on this giant planet, in this huge solar system, which is in an enormous galaxy, which is part of an unfathomable universe. Wow.

Here's what it all boils down to:

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." (Romans 1:20-21)

I am so thankful that our God not only created the earth and all that is in it, but He is able to do a new work any time...in the heart of the human. As Beth points out in Day 4, He doesn't take our old heart and our acts of self-righteousness and self-discipline to form a clean heart in us, He creates a clean heart from nothing (bara). A whole new work. Thank God for that.