Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Awe and Wonder

Nathan Stam
Communications/Children's Pastor

When we think about God there should be an appropriate response of awe and wonder. He is, after all, the Creator and Maker of all things. The Master Designer and Author of the Play. Read these words and let the wonders of our God resonate in your heart:
Consider how we perceive the world. What is truly extraordinary is not extrasensory perception, claims for which inevitably dissolve on investigation. What is extraordinary is rather our very ordinary moment-to-moment sensory experiences of organizing formless neural impulses into colorful sights and meaningful sounds.
Think about it. As you look at someone, particles of light energy are being absorbed by your eyes' receptor cells, converted into neural signals that activate neighboring cells, which, down the line, transmit a million electrochemical messages per moment up to your brain. There, separate parts of your brain process information about color, form, motion and depth, and then--in some still-mysterious way--combine this information to form a consciously perceived image that is instantly compared with previously stored images and recognized as, say, your grandmother. The whole process is as complex as taking a house apart, splinter by splinter, transporting it to a different location, and then, through the efforts of millions of specialized workers, putting it back together. Voila! The material brain gives rise to consciousness. That all of this happens instantly, effortlessly and continuously is better than cool; it is truly amazing and bewildering. In explaining such phenomena I empathize with Job: "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me" (Job 42:3). 

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