Our stomach, for instance, in the process of normal digestion, produces hydrochloric acid strong enough to burn a hole in a rug, yet it does not consume our own body while in the process of digesting our food. The nose, likewise, serves us amazingly well. It not only removes the dust particles from the air we breathe, but regardless of the temperature, warms the air up to body temperature in the short distance from the nose to the lungs. As for our lungs, they are busy exchanging the carbon dioxide in our blood for fresh oxygen, and though they only weigh three and a half pounds, they contain 600,000,000 air cells. In fact, if the air sacs alone in our lungs were laid out flat, they would cover 2,600 square feet. Yet, they are compacted within our chest cavity along with the heart, etc.

The blood in our body weighs about seven pounds per 100 pounds of body weight, and composes about five quarts. Yet, it travels through 100,000 miles of blood vessels in our body, returning to the heart in about 60 seconds (a distance equal to five round trips from New York City to Sidney, Australia). And, although about 250,000,000 blood cells are destroyed and replaced daily, yet the volume remains constant at between five and six quarts.

Although the heart weighs but two and a half pounds, and is about the size of one's fist, yet it does enough work in twelve hours to lift a 65-ton tank car one foot off the ground! Beating at the rate of seventy times per minute (100,800 times per day), yet if you count the time between beats, it finds enough time in a 24-hour day to not only do its work but to also rest fifteen hours daily (I wonder if there is a message there?). In one year, as it pumps the five quarts of blood through our body, it pumps from 777,000 to 1,600,000 gallons (depending on our activities), which is enough to fill from 97 to 200 tank cars of 8,000 gallons each.

And then add to that the fact that nerve impulses in our nervous system travel from the point of impact to the brain at the speed of 155 miles per hour--without destroying the brain on impact. And note that the complex nature of the brain is so vast that, though it weighs but three pounds, it would require vast computers to even begin to equal it in function. And then add to that the fact automatic reflex action of our body (as the eye blinking before we even have time to see what is actually coming) shows purpose and careful planning.

Truly, the body is "fearfully and wonderfully made." And yet some say there is no God? David says down in our souls we know otherwise. God has indeed born testimony of His existence!

--by Donald P. Ames, Market Street church bulletin, Athens, AL

Back to Contents Does God Exist?, March/April 1996