“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).
With these words and actions of God, we see the origin of man. As I look from time to time in these articles at the marvelous things that we see in the world around us that God has created, we many times over look ourselves.
Thousands of years ago before all of the recent medical discoveries, the psalmist penned these words.
“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth” (Psalms 139:14-15).
What words would David have used if he was able to know what we know now? Well, I’m not sure that any other words could adequately describe the awe and reverence that we should show for God because of his creating us than “I will praise thee.” For indeed as we look at the human body in minute details possible today, we can see that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
The body does some truly amazing things just consider: In an average day your body will
- exercise 7,000,000 brain cells
- beat your heart 103,689 times
- pump blood 68,000,000 miles
- speak 48,000 words using 72 different muscles for each word
- inhale 438 cubic feet of air
- breathe 23,040 times
- eat 3.25 pounds of food
- drink 2.9 pounds of liquids
- perspire 1.43 pints of water
- produce 100 billion red blood cells
- analyze and process billions of sensory signals
- remove 45 gallons of liquid from the blood
- reabsorb 43.5 gallons of liquid into the blood
- lose 7.8 pounds of waste materials
During your lifetime you will
- shed and replace 40 pounds of skin
- walk 5 times around the equator of the earth
- produce enough saliva to fill two swimming pools
- blink your eyes 6,205,000 times
- shed over 30 feet of eyelashes
- replace every atom making your body once each year you live
- eat 15 tons of food
- drink 12,000 gallons of water
- pump 73 million gallons of blood
Or consider this
- Your blood travels through 60,000 miles of blood vessels in tubes that allow only one way flow. The blood has seven types of cells that are necessary to keep you alive. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:1).
- Just one square inch on the back of your hand – it will have nine feet of blood vessels, 600 pain sensors, 9000 nerve endings, 36 heat sensors and 75 pressure sensors and a total of 72 feet of nerve fibers.
- Your 3 pound brain is 2.1 pounds of water, has about 100 billion cells each with up to 60,000 connections to other neurons for a total of 60 trillion connections that do not really touch but are separated by short spaces called synapses. Produces thousands of chemicals called neurotransmitters. It is 2% of the gray matter that uses 94% of the oxygen reaching the brain. Is bathed by a special fluid called cerebrospinal fluid, which is replaced every three hours. The brain produces electricity in the 5 to 50 millionth of a volt. It would take 60,000 humans to light a flashlight. Signals coming from over a million sense cells arrive at the rate of 2,000 per second.
Indeed, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made!” Let us truly “praise God” because of what he has done when he created our bodies.
