Look at Yourself

The Bible says: “The heavens are declaring the glory of God; and of the work of his hands the expanse is telling.” (Ps. 19:1) And how eloquently they do so!

However, we do not have to view the vast starry heavens to see demonstrations of God’s power and qualities. Just consider yourself.

Look at your hands. Are they holding the magazine that you are reading? If so, no doubt your arm is bent so as to keep the magazine at the right distance from your eyes. Each finger is exerting just enough pressure to prevent the magazine from falling, but not so much that you tear the paper. Did you think all of this out before you started to read? Of course not. Your body organized the whole thing for you, with just a minimum of decision-making by you.

Although your body is comparatively at rest, what are your eyes doing? They are automatically focusing on successive words or groups of words. The visual impressions are being changed in the back of your eyes to electrical impulses. These are being carried to your brain. If you are concentrating, the brain is storing up information for future use and comparing new material with what was received previously.

Meanwhile, without your giving a thought to it, your heart is busily pumping, sending blood on its complicated journey through your body. That blood is carrying essential substances to places where these are needed, then carrying waste products to locations where these can be expelled from the body.

Additionally, the movement of the diaphragm is filling your lungs with oxygen, then squeezing them to get rid of the carbon dioxide.

If you have eaten recently, your food is now being digested, without your conscious direction. The food is either being mixed with acids in your stomach to break it down to its basic constituents or being squeezed by a complicated muscular action known as “peristalsis” through your intestines, allowing the nutrients to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

There is much other activity going on too. Your bone marrow is making replacement blood cells. Your skin is manufacturing new parts to replace the worn-out surface cells. Your toenails, fingernails and hair are growing. Glands are manufacturing complicated substances to keep your body chemistry balanced. All of this is happening right at this moment even when your body is apparently resting!

The technology of our bodily mechanisms is incredibly more advanced than anything man has been able to accomplish in this space age. Is it logical to view such a masterpiece as the product of mere chance?

The theory of evolution says that mankind is a product of the working of natural laws, but it does not explain who the “lawmaker” is. In effect, it says that we made ourselves. But is it not more logical—more according to the way we know things really happen—to follow the reasoning of the Bible writer who proclaimed: “In a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made”? And: “Know that Jehovah is God. It is he that has made us, and not we ourselves”?—Ps. 139:14; 100:3.

Let’s Face Reality

Because of the materialistic trend of thinking in the West, many persons feel uneasy about admitting that there is a God and acknowledging a spiritual answer to the question: “Where did we come from?” One freethinker stated: “We can be sensible and rational only when we express ourselves in terms of and within the realm of present knowledge.” But is that really so?

There are many things that scientists know exist but are unable to explain. Such things as the human mind, our conscience, our instinct for worship—they all certainly exist. But science cannot explain them in terms of “present knowledge.” What about life itself? What is this powerful “life energy” that differentiates living things from the nonliving? Scientists cannot say. Yet it is a part of our everyday experience. In fact, it is so common that we tend to forget how truly miraculous life itself really is.

The familiar law of cause and effect states that every effect must have a cause. There must have been a “cause” for the wonderfully delicate machinery that makes up the human body. Today we are in a better position than any previous generation to see how wise that first “cause” must have been. Yet even more, there must have been a “cause,” a Producer, of such things as the human mind, the human conscience and of life itself. Really, these things can never be satisfactorily explained except in the way that the Bible does. Addressing the God he worshiped, a Bible writer said: “With you is the source of life.” (Ps. 36:9) There is no basis in our “present knowledge” for coming to any other conclusion.

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WHO DESIGNED THE HUMAN BODY?

BRAIN: A living computer so complex that best man-made models are toys by comparison. Memory and learning capacity estimated at a billion times more than used in present human lifetime.

EYE: A fully automatic, self-focusing, nonblurring, color motion-picture camera that takes instant three-dimensional pictures needing no laboratory development.

HEART: A pump far more efficient than any machine of any kind devised by man. Pumps 1,500 gallons (5,700 L) or more daily, doing enough work to lift your body 500 feet (150 m) straight up.

LIVER: An extremely complicated and versatile chemical laboratory with more than 500 functions, including storage and release of blood, vitamins, minerals and nutrients as needed. Manufactures over 1,000 different enzymes to promote chemical conversions.

BONES: A structural frame weighing only 20 pounds (9 kg), yet strong as iron girders—superbly rigged and balanced to anchor muscles and to shield vital organs.

NERVOUS SYSTEM: A massive communications network that receives and/or acts on 100,000,000 sensations a second through electrochemical impulses. Reaches every square millimeter of skin, every muscle, blood vessel bone and organ.