A Little Knowledge… Shows How Little I Know

Something happened last night…

While attending a meeting at our church regarding choices that affect the way our digestive system works, I realized I know so little about a subject that should be of great importance.

Digestion is not the simple work of our innards, normally defined by the stomach and intestines. No, digestion begins with our brain. Since this is the controlling factor of our nervous center, most digestion begins with the way we think about food. Our brain can receive stimuli to act based upon our senses, and just thinking about food can cause those “creative juices” to start flowing.

Now, I’m not going to show my ignorance even further by revealing all my thimble of knowledge holds. But I think it is important to consider that what we do not know can really affect us due to the choices we randomly or habitually make.

While pondering the subject last night, my mind flowed to some important words from the psalmist…

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.” (Psalms 139:13-15 ESV)

The way our bodies are designed to work is a remarkable organized process. When we mess around with the way something is supposed to work, then we are victimized by the way things end up working.

Results are a consequence of our actions. Think about it. What we do creates what we get. True, there may be some broken steps along the way, and no matter how hard we try to do things correctly then the results will always be wrong. But, when everything is working correctly, then providing the correct fuel should keep us on the right track.

A friend from some years back had a focus on how to fuel his body based upon how much he exercised it during the previous hours. Work hard, fuel more. Work light, fuel less. Not a bad way of thinking about giving exactly what is needed from the effort put into it.

Think about this again: Results are a consequence of our actions! This is an important concept in all facets of life. Health, family, career, savings, investments, spiritual, friends, schedule, cooking, driving, building, playing, ….

Whoa! This list does not seem to stop!

So, to improve my results, I must better control my actions. If I want better results, then I need to better control what I feed into the formula.

And much of life is simply a formula… (More on that later…)

Intelligent. Adaptive.

It struck me this morning…

How special we are! King David, writing a psalms gives me a foundation of thought for this morning.

Psalms 139:13-18 KJV For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. (14) I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. (15) My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. (16) Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. (17) How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! (18) If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

Some may say we are the highest order of species on the earth, and others say we are no different than the animal kingdom. Yet, in the vastness of creation, there is no other known creature that has the abilities that humans have. Does this make us intelligent? Perhaps in ways unique to our species. If we compare to other species in their natural element, then maybe not. Could we adapt to live the life of  a sea snake? No. Can we understand them? Somewhat, but we cannot “think” like they do.

We are not able to read minds yet!

We are intelligent enough to probe the depths of space and the human genome. We are capable enough to develop travel deep into the earth, and far into space. We are extremely unique!

This picture has been posted on social media many times. In fact, something similar was faxed decades ago.

Think about our adaptability.

“This message serves to prove how our minds can do amazing things! Impressive things! In the beginning it was hard but your mind is reading it automatically without even thinking about it. Be proud! Only certain people can read this. Please forward if you can read this…”

As I read the picture, my mind took about 2 seconds to translate the weirdly coded writing, and then I read it as quickly as I read any paragraph in this blog. When working in IT, there were times of career when it became easy to read binary code, or a hexadecimal core dump from some program abort. Even reading through a deeply organized or lightly thought out operation of computer logic – sometimes it was easy to speed through and comprehend, while other times it created headaches and sleepless nights!

Why are we not as intelligent in other areas of life? We are scammed by those trying to take all our money. We easily believe lies as if they are truth. We spend more than we make, live beyond our means, and make this world unsafe in many ways.

Sometimes we want to believe the lie, or the scammer seems like a nice young man so he cannot be all bad! It’s almost as if a cloak gets pulled over our intelligence. We believe we will win the Publishers Clearinghouse weekly award. The winning lottery ticket is in our hands! We are invincible and surely this stunt will not hurt us, these drugs will not kill us.

This is when we adapt to the world around us. We change to fit the scenario. Fashions make us dress like the pop star, and we think its important. The world becomes vulgar and we simply accept it, and then we adapt and before we know it, our life is as vulgar as everyone else. Something becomes hot and we want it. Something cools off and we reject it for something different, new or better. We throw off relationships quickly as our taste changes.

Someone told me at the age of 17 I should wait until I was about 25 to marry because most young marriages will not last. Though we just celebrated 40 years, it is true that many young loves do not last into maturity.

As I write papers in my degree program, I am constantly struck by the idea that we are not thinking very fresh. We are simply building on the back of others who researched the matter decades, or even centuries ago, and we are not pushing into the vastness of knowledge with anything new. We simply seem to be reaffirming what others have said before, agreeing with them with some measure of research and verification, but mostly we simply and critically accept their presentation.

Scientist build new logical steps based on what they learned in school, and what they are experimenting with today – proving their foundation and opening new territories. Doctors have taken the field of medicine from quackery to tremendous capabilities of the extension of life and curing diseases. Aeronautical engineers have shown that we can build a plane that is made of composite material and make it fly. Battery powered cars are becoming accepted. Technology advances computers and cell phones are miniaturizing and who knows when or where that will end!  In fact, I just heard on a radio news report that there is now a computerized and mechanized bartender that costs $4,000 that will make the perfect drink, allow you to order from your smart device, let you know when it’s time to buy another, and keep up with your physiology and tell you when your blood alcohol content is approaching the limits!

As we push back the wilderness, species are being destroyed – never to be recovered. Wildlife is adapting to new neighbors – often to the detriment of all.

Intelligent? Sure. Adaptive? Definitely. Along the way we are adapting to a world that is taking God out of the equation – and sadly, we are okay with it. This is not new to any thinking person. It has been going on for centuries. One generation pushes back, the next pulls to themselves the knowledge of God. Israel did it in generational patterns. How many times do we find the next leader stepping on the scene and bringing the nation back to the center line of God? Like a roller coaster. Up one generation, plummeting to the depths away from God simply with the changing of the guard.

This gives me hope. What I might not like about where we are now can simply change with a changing of the guard! Or perhaps with another tragedy.