The First and Last Letters Matter Most
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef but the wrod as a wlohe.
There's a lesson to be gleaned from this little exercise. We must learn to read life the way we read words on a page, resisting the temptation to focus too much on the individual events, choosing instead to take it all in as a whole.
Jesus claims to be the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and End. Among other things, this suggests that the beginning and the end of all things are exactly as they should be.
Unfortunately, it's in the middle where we live, and it's a jumbled mess! But God has not left us to wallow in the chaos and confusion. By making sure the beginning and the end of all things are what they should be, God restores meaning to what's in the middle.
When we read life as a whole, the chaos in the middle preserves its proper meaning.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End" (Revelation 22:13).
Illustration Exchange
The Man With The Dragon Tattoo
According to the HUFFPOST LIFESTYLE:
A father who had the words "f*** life" inked across his stomach in his youth has had the expletive covered by a huge dragon tattoo - for the sake of his kids.
Andy, 27, from Glasgow, has two young daughters under the age of five and, as a result, wanted to cover up the undesirable tattoo before they learned to read.
... He said he first had the tattoo when he was 18 years old because he was obsessed with the rappers Tupac, Eminem and 50 Cent. For him, it was a way of making him look "hard".
Before a child is old enough to read your tattoos, they can read you. If your life is empty and meaningless, a tattoo dragon won’t hide it from your children. Ink can’t conceal the fact that you are dead in sin, in need of new life in Christ.
"Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness" (Romans 6:13).
Everything Means Something
The world is guided by two very different perspectives. The secularist believes that life is just a series of random events, with no deeper meaning or purpose. The religionist, on the other hand, believes that we are all the product of a thoughtful and purposeful Creator. So, either nothing means anything or everything means something. Either life is an accident or it’s replete with meaning.
These two sets of opinions could not be more diametrically opposed to one another. Surely, the evidence must point in favor of one over the other. Here’s one for the life is full of meaning category.
We’ve long known that the best way to identify a person is by the unique loops, ridges and whorls that make up their fingerprints. That’s because the odds are one in several billion that any two people could have matching fingerprints. But these patterns, also known as dermatoglyphics, may be used for more than identifying crime scene suspects. New research indicates that the fine details of our fingerprints may also tell the story of our individual ethnic origin and even predict our medical destiny.
According to Jessica Firger with NEWSWEEK:
For some time, anthropologists and forensic scientists have used fingerprints to learn more about identity … Anthropologists examine what’s known as Level 1 details, a close look at the pattern types and ridge counts. Forensic scientists focus on Level 2 details, fingerprint “minutiae,” or the specific variants of fingerprints …
A study published recently in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology is one of the first joint efforts to bridge the gap in the two fields by examining ... ancestry with a look at pattern type variation of Level 2 detail … While they weren’t able to detect any notable variations in the fingerprints of men versus women, the researchers did find Level 2 differences in the fingerprints of African-American people versus those of European-American descent.
[Also] a growing body of research has found that … there are some patterns, shapes and repetitions of fingerprint patterns that are unique to certain diseases and health conditions. One study suggests people with Alzheimer’s disease have more ulnar loops (loop patterns that flow toward the little finger) and fewer ridges and arches. Another study, published in the American Journal of Genetics, found that women with breast cancer were more likely to have a pattern of six or more whorls (coils or spirals) on fingers than women without the disease.
We use the expression “It’s written in the stars,” to speak of something that is predetermined or certain. Perhaps, what we should be saying is “It’s written on your finger tips!” For it appears that it is there, not in the stars, that we discover where we came from and what the future may hold for us.
Before these recent studies, we knew that the random loops and ridges on the tips of our fingers offered a unique identifier, but they didn't seem to hold any meaning beyond that. What an amazing thing it is to discover that even these fine details hold specific meaning for each of us.
This raises an important question. If even the smallest details of our fingerprints can hold such personal and profound meaning, could there be a deeper meaning to the other small details of our lives? Is it possible that the circumstances and people we encounter, easily dismissed as happenstance, might hold deeper meaning, too? The Apostle Paul certainly believed this to be the case when he wrote, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Just as your fingerprints are meaningful to you and to you alone, so your circumstances are meaningful to you and to you alone. It may not be immediately apparent how the finer details of your life will prove themselves to be God's will for you, but the earnest seeker discovers that everything has a purpose and so everything means something.