Life—A Gift From God
TWENTY-FOUR hours a day, our heart pumps precious blood through our body. We fall asleep, and our lungs continue to expand and contract. We eat a meal, and the food is automatically digested. All of this takes place every day, with little or no conscious effort on our part. These mysterious and wondrous processes, so easily taken for granted, are part of the gift we call life. In a sense it is a gift that can be called miraculous.
Consider the process of human conception and birth. Although the body normally rejects foreign tissue, the womb makes an exception for a fertilized egg. Instead of rejecting the growing embryo as foreign tissue, it nourishes and protects it until it is ready to emerge as a baby. Without the womb’s ability to make this crucial exception to the rule of rejecting foreign tissue, human birth would be impossible.
Even so, life for a newborn baby would be short were it not for a development that takes place in the womb when a fetus is only about four months old. At that time it begins sucking its thumb, exercising the muscles that will later enable it to feed at its mother’s breasts. And this is just one of many life-and-death matters that are resolved long before a baby’s birth.
While a fetus is in the womb, there is a hole in the wall of its heart. This hole, however, automatically closes at birth. Additionally, a large blood vessel that bypasses the lungs while the fetus is in the womb automatically constricts at birth; blood now goes to the lungs, where it can be oxygenated as baby takes its first breath.
All of this is just the beginning. Throughout life, a series of elegantly designed systems (such as the respiratory, circulatory, nervous, and endocrine systems) will perform and coordinate their functions with an efficiency that staggers human comprehension—all for the perpetuation of life. No wonder that an ancient writer said with reference to God: “I shall laud you because in a fear-inspiring way I am wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, as my soul is very well aware.”—Psalm 139:14.
Clearly, the writer of those beautiful words did not believe that life is simply the product of blind, evolutionary chance or accident. If such were the case, we would have no real obligations or responsibilities as to how we should use our lives. However, the mechanisms of life clearly reflect design, and design requires a designer. The Bible sets out this principle: “Of course, every house is constructed by someone, but he that constructed all things is God.” (Hebrews 3:4) It is therefore vital to “know that Jehovah is God. It is he that has made us, and not we ourselves.” (Psalm 100:3) Yes, life is more than a benign accident; it is a gift from God himself.—Psalm 36:9.
Such being the case, what obligations do we have toward the Giver of life? How does he expect us to use our lives? These and related questions will be considered in the next article.