God knew me, grew me, can see right through me

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast are the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.  When I awake, I am still with you.  --Psalm 139:13-18

This is the first Universal, Immutable Truth: that God created us.  Without this principle as a foundation, then at best, God is a johnny-come-lately, like a carpet-bagger or a used car salesman.  Jesus did not say, "Now that you have life, I can show you how to live it abundantly." That is a cheap gospel.  What He said in John 10:10 was, "I have come that you might have life, AND that you might have it abundantly."  At worst, without the principle of a Creator God, the atheists are right, and there is no God.

God has always been interested in our individual lives.  He knew us before we were even born.  Before Dr. John Wild pioneered the use of medical sonogram in 1949, God could see us in utero.  All of the intricate, delicate chemical reactions taking place during the nine months of gestation were not only known by God, but orchestrated by him.  He knew us the very moment we were conceived:  how tall we would be, how athletic, what color our hair and eyes would be, whether we would lose our hair or wear glasses--all of it. Not only did he see us and make us in our mother's womb, not only did he know us at the moment of our conception--He knew us before the earth was formed.  What an awesome God we serve!

I have been reading The Language of God by Dr.  Francis S. Collins.  He was one of the lead scientists in the human genome project, where they succeeded in mapping human DNA.  Dr. Collins is a devout Christian, and he describes in his book how awe-inspiring the work of God in creation is.  As a scientist (he got a PhD in chemistry and physics, then went to medical school and got an MD), he has a unique perspective on the minute details of God's handiwork:

"My first published paper on human genetics was based on DNA sequencing.  I was studying the production of just one protein, found in the red blood cells of the human fetus in utero, that is supposed to gradually disappear after birth, when babies begin to breathe with their own lungs.  The protein is called fetal hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the protein that allows red blood cells to deliver oxygen from our lungs to all the rest of the body.  Humans and some apes use a special version of hemoglobin before birth that helps extract oxygen from the mother's blood to nourish the growing fetus.  During the first year of life, this fetal hemoglobin gradually turns off, and the adult form is produced instead.  However, in a Jamaican family I was studying, substantial quantities of fetal hemoglobin continued to appear in adulthood.  The cause of this "hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin" was of intense interest, because if we could learn how to trigger it on purpose in anyone, it would greatly reduce the ravages of sickle-cell anemia."

When I read that, I could not help but think of Psalm 139: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  The fetus has fully functioning, mature lungs at 32 weeks, eight full weeks before full gestation.  This means that for two months prior to your birth, you were able to breathe air outside the womb.  Yet God was not finished making you yet, if you were carried to term.  Of the millions of processes taking place while you were being formed, this one protein called fetal hemoglobin allowed you to process the oxygen your mother was breathing.  And now, within the last ten years, scientists have found other uses for that protein, to help and perhaps heal hundreds of thousands of patients with a debilitating disease.

When I use the phrase, "God knows how many people this may help in the future," I am not expressing the futility of human limitations.  People have been using the phrase, "God only knows" for centuries to mean that this calculation or that idea is beyond human ability to comprehend.  But think about it.  God does know, and he cares.  He is able to think about all of the millions of changes that occur during pregnancy, the billions of changes that occur during our lifetime, the zillions of changes that have occurred throughout history--and yet he cares for us individually.  Not only does he care about us, he loves us.

My father was a Baptist preacher, and a Young Earth Creationist.  His view was that God made the world in six days, and within that one short week he set into motion all of the natural processes necessary to sustain human life.  You and I are the product of some 6000 to 10,000 years of human existence, and because the Earth was created fully grown (and thus had no need to evolve), the oldest creatures on earth only pre-dated Man by 2-3 calendar days.  Dr. Collins, whose book I quoted above, is a believer in Theistic Evolution.  His view, after careful study, is that God caused the Big Bang to occur about 14 million years ago.  When God said, "Let there be light," the light that came about was due to this massive stellar explosion.  Mathematically, this explosion that was the beginning of the Universe had to be so precise that it almost screams out in favor of intelligent design.  Famed physicist Stephen Hawking has written:

"Why did the universe start out with so nearly the critical rate of expansion that separates models that recollapse from those that go on expanding forever, that even now, 10 million years later, it is still expanding at nearly the critical rate?  If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in 100 thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size."

Again, this is only one of the billions of changes that evolutionists have said must take place for life to emerge on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy in a vastly expanding universe.  Viewing this information from a Christian worldview, as Collins does, presupposes that God has been thinking about you and me for over 14 million years.  He had our physical, emotional, psychological, and yes, spiritual well-being in mind from before the cosmic event called the Big Bang. That's why he made you with a conscience, a desire to adhere to what C.S. Lewis called the Moral Law.

St. Augustine of Hippo said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you."  God thinks about you all the time, and has thought about you from before the foundation of creation.  He wants you to think of him, too.  He wants you to know him intimately, as an adopted Father; that is why he sent his only Son to die a sacrificial death for you.  Believe in Him, and live the abundant life he has for you.