Can’t Be!

Can’t Be

As many know, I used to teach at Southwest Baptist University. One of my favorite classes was Human Growth and Development. Allow me to reminisce for a moment and share some fascinating tidbits of fact. Here goes:

Life begins at conception. The ovum and sperm unite in the fallopian tubes and travel for nearly a week before implantation in the uterus. The result of the union of ovum and sperm is called a zygote. The zygote is roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. (An estimated 76 trillion different genetic possibilities at conception.) Truly amazing! That period-sized, single-celled zygote contains all the genetic code that will determine or influence everything about us through the course of our lives.

And, the brain! No computer can compete. It has been estimated that we have about 100 billion brain cells and one trillion support cells. It has been suggested that brain cells develop at the rate of 250,000 per second during the gestation (pregnancy) process. At birth, the weight of the brain is already about 25% of its mature adult weight, by age two about 75% of that adult weight. Can I get you to join me with a big “WOW”!

I am profoundly fascinated by our beginnings. We are, as the following Scripture illustrates, “remarkably and wonderfully made”. Some suggest accident. Some contend primordial ooze. Others appeal to “The Singularity” to explain the wonder. For me, God is the Creator. Of all the options, that makes the most logical sense. I wrote a poem, short though it be, to communicate an aspect of my wonder.

Psalm 139:14-17

“For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you
when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is!” Christian Standard Bible (CSB).

Can’t Be

Synaptic activity. Electricity. Chemicals. Salt and potassium. Neurotransmitters. Consciousness. Ideas. Creations. Relationships. Contact with God. Neuromechanisms? Simply neuromechanisms? Can’t be.

-Richard L. Brewer