The Body—Wonderfully Made to Enjoy Life!
SCIENTISTS acknowledge that the human body is wonderfully made, truly a marvel of design and engineering. When all our body parts are working normally, we can do and enjoy things that are absolutely amazing.
For example, look at your hands. They are exquisitely designed to accomplish so many things in work or play. Right now, are your hands holding this magazine you are reading? If so, then your arms are bent at just the correct angle to keep the magazine the right distance from your eyes. Your fingers are exerting the needed pressure to prevent it from slipping out of your hands. And those fingers are controlled by the brain to do exactly what you want them to when you turn the page. What a disadvantage it would be not to have hands!
Your eyes are also involved in reading these pages. An amazing network of nerves and other body parts come into play to get the images of the words and pictures from the page into your eye and then into your brain. The electrical impulses produced by the eye are carried to the brain, where they are used to form visual impressions corresponding to the images on the page. How important our eyesight is, and how tragic when it is lost!
The human brain weighs only about three pounds and is small enough to fit in your hand. But it is a marvel, one of the most complex creations in the universe. It enables us to think, to see, to feel, to talk, to coordinate our movements. Thanks to this intricate brain, we can enjoy beautiful sunsets, delicious food, a summer breeze on our face, the magnificent views of awe-inspiring mountains, the laughter of a baby, the fragrance of a flower, the touch of someone we love—and much of this without any conscious effort on our part. Without this awesome brain, we could enjoy absolutely nothing.
How appropriate are the psalmist’s words: “In a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made”!—Psalm 139:14.
Yet, with all this fine equipment, the time comes when the body eventually breaks down. We get sick and old, and then we die. There is so much bad in the world around us that even when we are in good health, our enjoyment of life is diminished. Will these disagreeable conditions always exist? Or were our bodies really designed to last forever—free from the ravages of sickness, old age, and death—to enjoy life indefinitely on earth in a far fuller sense than anything we now experience?
Awake! will examine these matters in three issues over the coming months. In this first part, we will discuss just a few of our amazing body parts: the hand, the eye, and the brain.