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What Has God Done for You?

‘NOTHING!’ some might reply. ‘I have to work hard and look after myself.’ If that is how you feel, just reflect for a moment. How did you come to be?

Some nine months before you were born, two minute organisms met inside your mother. Together they formed a new, unique organism.

The larger of the two organisms was an ovum, or egg, supplied by your mother. The smaller organism was a sperm from your father​—so minute that, according to Sheila Kitzinger’s book The Experience of Childbirth, if all the sperm that produced all the people in the world were laid side by side, they would “cover little more than one inch [2.5 cm].” But once your father’s sperm penetrated your mother’s ovum, your genetic code was established and you were conceived!

Highly complex processes of development then began. They were “so intricate that, after more than a century of study, scientists aren’t even close to deciphering them,” wrote Andrea Dorfman in Science Digest.

As an example of growth processes that puzzle scientists, the same writer comments: “Growth control is an equally complex issue. Left and right arms, for example, develop completely independently from millimeter-long buds of tissue, yet they end up equal lengths. How do the cells know when to stop multiplying? . . . Each organ seems to have an internal means of growth control.” Are we not happy that this is so?

What causes and controls growth in all living organisms? A mindless force called nature? A hit-and-miss process called evolution? Is it not obvious that the astoundingly complex, tremendously varied, and superbly beautiful forms of life on this enchanting planet can only be the work of an almighty Creator? That being so, should we not feel deeply grateful for what he has done for us?

Infinite Evidence of Creative Marvels

Every day​—even hourly—​we benefit from creative marvels. For example, what happens when we sleep? Mental and muscular activities slow down automatically. This is not by our own volition, for we often fall asleep without realizing it. And how refreshing a good sleep is! Some can go for weeks with no food, but those who go for more than three days without sleeping have great difficulty thinking, seeing, and hearing.

After you awake in the morning, maybe someone brings you sweetened coffee. Sugar, once rare and expensive, is now so abundant that we seldom give it a thought. But how is it made? It is formed in plants by the process of photosynthesis​—the reaction of sunlight with water and carbon dioxide. At the same time oxygen, vital to all living creatures on earth, is released. Photosynthesis is a highly complex process that is still not fully understood by scientists. “How . . . is photosynthesis itself achieved?” asks the book The Plants. (Life Nature Library) “This is like asking how life begins​—we just do not know.”

Perhaps as you drink your coffee, you recall a television program of the previous evening. In your mind’s eye you can see those interesting scenes again. How were they transmitted to your brain, stored there like a roll of film, then played back so that you can describe them to others? Marvelous, is it not? How did man get the intelligence to do the amazing things he accomplishes? Certainly not from animals. Is not the human brain awesome?

The day has hardly begun. Yet what a lot we already have to thank the Creator for! But there is so much more.