Candle lighter
Advent is a time for reflecting on the coming of our Savior as a baby, and a time for looking ahead to His glorious return. The Christmas season can be hectic, making it difficult to focus our hearts and minds on one of the greatest events of all history. We invite you to join us these next few weeks as we explore why our hearts seem so distracted and disjointed, and what it looks like to have a heart united in the wondrous fear of our only Savior.
The scientist
I’m a scientist. I spend my days breaking things down, scrutinizing the tiniest details of the world. I break food down into its elements, living things down into their parts, the universe down into particles. For example, I know more about how our bodies digest the ridiculous amounts of food consumed over the holidays than the average human being would ever want to know.
Still, there’s so much science simply doesn’t know, such as how the brain works, exactly. Science still can’t answer how I can come up with a thought. Science still doesn’t know what causes the many maladies plaguing humanity. As a scientist, it’s my job to put a list of facts together after breaking some system down, but all I ever come up with are theories or educated guesses as to the purpose of the whole.
Still, I’d like to think that I would have a much better understanding of something I can break into parts. I can break Christmas down into a series of events and a complex chemical process in the brain that produces happy feelings and an irrepressible urge to gorge on holiday food, but I am not sure that putting all the pieces back together will allow me to see what it all really means. What is the purpose of all this? For all my breaking things apart, I seem to have lost the purpose instead. Like I am working with a trillion piece jigsaw puzzle but have no idea what the original picture was supposed to look like. Though my scientific mind compels me to continue breaking things down, I can’t seem to make the sum of the parts equal the whole. And what’s worse, I seem to have lost the purpose and meaning of my own life.
You see, I know that my body needs some form of nutrition to sustain life. But could it really be true that life is more than food?
Candle lighter
Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Jesus came that we would have life, a life united under a deeper purpose than just the sum of our parts. Lord, we are so complex, but You are One. Unite our hearts to fear Your name.
