The Infinity in Usfeatured
An unavoidable human problem
As a young child living in Mexico, I clearly remember one of my fears: When I first realized that people die. As a young inquisitive person, I overheard my parents and older brother speaking about this, and then I asked my mother if they would one day die. The answer to this made me very sad. I asked her, “How could you die mom?” She explained that it was part of human life and that everyone, as they get older, would at one point die. It then dawned on me, “What about me? Will I also die one day?”
Do you realize that the day will come when YOU die? That means your heart will no longer beat, you will no longer breathe, talk, laugh, create things, and you will have no more brain activity, or any other type of cellular activity in your body. You will no longer check your cell phone to see what’s going on in the world. We are finite and our lives as we know them will at some point in the future cease to exist.
And what about our material possessions? It’s interesting that we live our lives working and accumulating more and more stuff. However, the cars that we drive will sooner or later end up in some car recycling place or a junk yard. The houses that we live in will one day simply be demolished or be left to succumb to the elements of nature.
EVERYTHING CREATED IS DECAYING. Did you know that the once iconic Titanic ship which sank in 1912 and is 2 miles underwater in the Atlantic Ocean may only last until 2030? It turns out that a certain bacterium that was discovered has been eating away the great Titanic. Yikes! How would you like to have iron particles for lunch? It is estimated that there may only be about 50% left of the titanic after more than 100 years since it sank.
Anything infinite out there?
The universe that God spoke into existence via the Big Bang is estimated to be around 92 billion light years old according to different estimates. We could dare think that if the universe had a beginning with time and space in the Big Bang, it would also have an end to its size and age. The universe will continue to expand into oblivion, into a very cold and dark place, unless God intervenes.
However, from our human perspective, the incredible size and age of the universe are so incomprehensible, that we perceive it to be infinite, and that is but a shadow of one of God’s qualities.
Websters dictionary defines infinite as: “Extending indefinitely: ENDLESS” or “immeasurably or inconceivably great or extensive: inexhaustible.”
We see that the universe has sort of a “fingerprint” of eternity, and it is interesting to note that even microscopic living parts in our bodies possess such a “fingerprint”:
1. Cells possess highly complex molecular machines in our bodies literally performing billions of functions at this very moment.
2. In his book “The Road Ahead”, Bill Gates said, “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.”
3. The human brain, which is likely the most complex thing we have discovered in the universe.
Even though humanity has reached a point of exponential knowledge about so much of the known world, it is likely that we only know but a fraction of what God has created.
A physician-scientist I had the honor of doing research the summer between my first and second year of medical school, Dr. Federico Gonzalez-Fernandez, MD, PhD, an ophthalmologist-pathologist, had studied a particular protein called “inter-retinoid binding protein” found in the retina of the eye, for at least 10 years. I’ll never forget when he once told me, “Frank, we still have so much to learn about this protein. We don’t know the 3-D shape of this protein, and there’s a different research group using crystallography to elucidate this.” Note that this is just but one single protein in the eye, and dozens of highly specialized people around the world are studying it to learn more about it. Can you imagine trying to learn everything there’s is to know about the more than 20,000 proteins in the human body?
Creation has been designed by a super magnificent, powerful, wise, and yet loving God, who is at a far higher level that we can ever fathom. When the Infinite One plans and designs and speaks things into existence they have “His touch of eternity.”
We see in the epistle of Colossians chapter one, verses 16-17: “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Our eternal hope: Our human spirit.
As Christians, we understand and believe that only God is infinite. However, through an amazing process that God went through, we are now “partakers of his divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Which process is this? The Bible teaches that God incarnated as a man named Jesus more than 2,000 years ago: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). He who was infinite, became finite in space and time, and partook of humanity. Wow.
At the age of 33 years, He was crucified and on the third day He resurrected. We see in the epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 1:45, that He became a “life-giving Spirit.” It is this Spirit that is compatible with our human spirit. It is this Spirit that can enter our spirit.
This following portion describes the importance of the human spirit: “The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the human spirit within a person” (Zechariah 12:1).
It is very important to realize that we are tripartite beings, that is we as living souls, have a human body and a human spirit: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
It is in this way how we finally get our infinite “void” or that “infinite space” filled inside of us, as nothing in this world can ever satisfy or fill. We will always have this eternal search for something out there to fill us, and it will never end as nothing can really fill that void inside of us, not even the entire universe! Only He who is infinite and eternal can fill that void inside of us.
The thinking behind the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal becomes more clearer when he wrote, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”
Please drop a comment and let me know what you think about this post. Thank you and God bless you richly!
Previous
Next
