The Miracle Working Apple Seed
I peeled an apple for my 2-year-old grandson. As he was eating it, a seed became visible. He pointed to it and said, "bug!" So I explained that it was really a seed and that if he planted it in the ground it would grow into a huge tree and the tree would grow more apples with more seeds in them.
As I attempted to explain this to him, I realized how this had to sound so incredible, even magical, to him. He hadn't lived long enough to see these things and to learn to take them for granted, like the rest of us. In his innocent state, hearing about the power of an apple seed for the first time sounded like the stuff of fairytales.
Sadly, the awe and wonder of childhood fades with age as we learn to take the miracles of life for granted.
How much wiser we would all be if we could just go back and see the world again for the first time. If we could see the world through the eyes of a child.
Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3).
The Miraculous Statistics Of Life On Earth
What are the odds of life existing on Earth? Or any other planet for that matter? Eric Metaxas, author of MIRACLES: WHAT THEY ARE, WHY THEY HAPPEN, AND HOW THEY CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE, takes a stab at the statistics:
In 1966 the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21 zeros—planets capable of supporting life. …
As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting. …
As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.
Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. …
The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. … Alter any one value … of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces … and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.
Eric Metaxas (1963 - ) is an American author, speaker, and TV host. He is the founder and host of the NYC-based event series, "Socrates in the City: Conversations on the Unexamined Life" and the co-host of the nationally syndicated weekly Sunday morning program, 100 Huntley Street.
"The greatest miracle of all time," he concludes, "without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself."
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1).
Dead Man Wakes Up In Body Bag
Here's something you won't read about everyday ...
(CNN) -- Even in the Bible Belt, coroners don't use the word "miracle" lightly.
But Holmes County, Mississippi, Coroner Dexter Howard has no qualms using the word for the resurrection, as it were, of Walter Williams …
Howard received the call from Williams' hospice nurse, who told him that the 78-year-old had passed away. …
Howard … drove to Williams' home to collect the body for funeral preparations. He checked Williams' pulse about 9 p.m. and pronounced him dead."There was no pulse. He was lifeless," Howard said.
The coroner completed his paperwork, placed Williams in a body bag and transported him to the funeral home, he said. There, something strange happened: The body bag moved.
"We got him into the embalming room and we noticed his legs beginning to move, like kicking," Howard said. "He also began to do a little breathing."
Paramedics arrived and hooked Williams up to monitors. Sure enough, he had a heartbeat, so they transported him to the Holmes County Hospital and Clinics.
Howard is an elected official and not a doctor. More than 1,500 counties in the United States elect coroners and most don't require medical degrees. ...
Howard was absolutely certain Williams was dead. The only reasonable explanation he could think of, Howard said, is that Williams' defibrillator, implanted beneath the skin on his chest, jump-started his heart after he was placed in the body bag. "It could've kicked in, started his heart back," Howard said. "The bottom line is it's a miracle."
Overjoyed family members are thanking God for saving the life of the longtime farmer they call "Snowball."
Very few people can claim to have been placed in a body bag and live to tell about it. Death doesn't get cheated very often, or does it?
"When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'" (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).