Life. I cannot define it as a philosopher might, but I know it is extraordinary. I know the more I learn of it, the more in awe I am of its sheer existence. Consider a single cell. In The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel quotes Walter Bradley describing the wonder of that single cell, by saying, “One person very creatively – but quite accurately – described a single-cell organism as a high-tech factory, complete with artificial languages and decoding systems; central memory banks that store and retrieve impressive amounts of information; precision control systems that regulate the automatic assembly of components: proofreading and quality control mechanisms that safeguard against errors; assembly systems that use principles of prefabrication and modular construction; and a complete replication system that allows the organism to duplicate itself at bewildering speeds.”⁷ I have recently learned the replication system for DNA essentially involves a copy machine. RNA carries the DNA to this copy machine and in the machine the DNA helix is split, copied, and recombined and then the cell splits, and where there was one there are now two. This is in a single cell we can’t even see with the naked eye. Some suggest this is the essence of life, the capacity to reproduce.  I find this astounding and just another aspect of God’s revelation of Himself through what He has made.

I live and you live because God has breathed into us the breath of life. This makes us far more than a single cell and physically, infinitely more complex. It also makes us different from all other created things. Since we are created in the image of God, we have the capacity to know and be known. Again, I return to that idea because I just can’t escape it. God knows me. He knows you. He cares. He can enter into our world and be present with us. In Acts 17:26-28, Paul, speaking with the people of Athens, puts it this way: From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.” God is not far from any of us, and that is what we need to remember today and throughout December.

Jay W. Hill