Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Immune to thermodynamics!

Sadly, this is going to be my first weedless entry. 

Yesterday I missed out on a great opportunity to witness to our daughter's doctor. While he was giving her the annual exam, he commented that the backs of her arms were rough, and told us it was called hyper keratosis, specifically keratosis pilaris. He always gives us interesting tidbits of info, and in this case he explained that keratin is a substance our skin produces as waterproofing. He pointed out that you can't have keratosis on the palms or soles, our skin doesn't produce keratin there because it is slippery and we wouldn't be able to grip things when we were wet. He attributed this feature of the human body as something mother nature has given us. Really, we can chalk another fascinating piece of info up as something else God in His infinite wisdom designed into our bodies. 

Hang on for the train ride of thought! 

The detail and perfection with which God created us made me think of the love He has for us. If any one of us invests great time and attention to detail into something we do, we take great pride in it. We love the work that we do that demonstrates our capabilities. Not only that, but consider that Genesis says God created us in His image! Every normal parent loves their children tremendously. Not only from all that we do to form them into the adults they will become, but because a piece of us is in them. They are in the image of their parents - their looks, actions, character and peculiarities are direct products of the parents. 

Mother nature could never achieve something as complex as the human body. What about entropy and the second law of thermodynamics? If everything left to itself tends to degenerate, how can mother nature produce anything useful at all? (In preparatory reading for this blog I learned that what I was taught about thermodynamics is considered outdated now since it lent itself too well to creationists, and rather than degenerate it is explained as a balancing of potential. This blog isn't intended to argue these points....) 

Oh how deep the love of God! That He would create us in His image, invest His wisdom in the details of our composition, give us freedom of choice, pay the price for the wrong choices we make, and offer us an eternity with Him! How can we not love Him back? With all that God is, all that He does...it may seem like a funny question. Yet when I examine myself, I find my love for God is shallow, pathetic, weak, and unworthy - and still He loves me. 

One of the weakest links in Christianity these days is our witness to others. We are convinced that it is too scary to share our faith, even in a place as free as this country. Sure, our ability to share our beliefs is slipping away - but we aren't doing anything about it! And we aren't doubling our efforts to share the gospel while we still can. If we really love God, wouldn't we share Him with others? We tell our friends about our favorites restaurants, computer games, latest fashion or craze, news, sports,...the list goes on endlessly. And we only like those things. But we won't share our faith. 

It is so great to know that no matter how the second law of thermodynamics affects our lives, nature, or even our walk with God it will never affect His love for us. 

 *The End* 

 P.S. For those who are totally lost... Entropy can be explained as balance. ie. The entropy of our lives was disrupted when our child was born. The laws of thermodynamics, among other things, state that when things are left to themselves, they tend towards maximum entropy (or balance). This is achieved by an equalization of potential - something with more energy loses that energy to something with less. ie. A cup of coffee that is hot and is left in a cooler room will dissipate that energy to the room. Since this is a balancing of energy, it usually is perceived as a degeneration of items with higher potential. It's more like leveling of uneven terrain. Since anything worth noticing can be perceived as something of higher potential, it will eventually lose that potential. Evolution flies in the face of these laws, since anything that develops would also un-develop as potential is equalized.