Daily Manna from Heaven

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” -Psalm 139:14

Nearly 3,000 years ago the psalmist, David, wrote, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Psalm 139:14). But just how wonderfully made man really is has come to light only in the past century as science has begun to unlock the secrets of the human body. The human body, according to medical science, contains 30 trillion cells that reproduce themselves every seven years. Each one of the 30 trillion cells performs 10,000 different chemical functions, according to Dr. Ralph Byron, renowned for his work at the City of Hope Cancer Clinic, yet all of them just work together to produce a healthy body.

When you get tired, you cannot say, “All right, cell number 26,433,293,000, get to work. You are not pulling your share of the load.” All of these cells are linked together by 2 billion nerve cells tied into a brain containing 14 billion cells (give or take a few). I hesitate to say that these 2 billion nerve cells are tied into a computer like device called the human brain, since the human brain is far superior to any computer ever created.

A few years ago I stated that for scientists to create a computer that would duplicate the function of the human brain, you would have to have a mechanism the size of a football field, five stories high, and to cool it would require the amount of water that flows over Niagara Falls; but today miniaturization has enabled scientists to shrink the size of their computer to a mechanism weighing about 3 pounds 2.2 kilograms–yet the computer that the scientist produces is still the product of his own brain and is only as good as the information fed into it.

The marvelous human body is powered by a digestive system that contains acids strong enough to eat the varnish off a table, yet function adequately in the stomach and intestine. Apply those same acids to the backside of your hand and they would immediately burn it. But within the human body the acids break down the foods you eat into fuel that is carried to your body through the bloodstream.

The blood is impelled by a powerful muscle, about the size of a man’s fist, known as a heart a complex device that beats more than 2.5 million times in an average life span. One of our Guidelines’ board members, an attorney by profession, broke his arm, the result of taking a fall while walking the dog. Wes was still adjusting to the new handicap of trying to eat with his arm in a cast. As we had breakfast together, I noticed with amusement he reached for his mouth with his napkin only to discover that he was closer to his ear. What a way to learn to appreciate the dexterity of your hand, which performs some 58 different movements. And all of this we take for granted.

One more thing: Don’t forget the marvel of the human eye, that remarkable little lens that lets you see the flowers, trees, and sunshine as it filters through the clouds. In spite of the fact that some of us find it necessary to wear glasses to correct a stigmatism, our eyes continue to let us perceive the world with a third dimension that lets us walk through the forest without hitting the trees.

“Just happened,” some say, speaking of the marvelous human body. It just happened about the way an explosion in a print shop would produce an unabridged dictionary of the English language. Why don’t you, like David of old, pause, fill your lungs with clean air, and lift your head toward heaven, saying, “Thank you, Lord, for my health and for my body. Thank you, Father, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

** “The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”**

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“But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” -Isaiah 40:31, NKJV.

James Aggrey tells the story of a man who was walking through the forest and found a young eagle. Felling sorry for the young bird, which apparently had fallen out of its nest, and fearing that one of the wild animals of the forest would certainly pounce upon the eagle and kill it, he decided to take it home and put it in his barnyard, and that he did. Within a few days the young eagle adapted to his environment and began to eat chicken feed, and soon behaved much the same as the rest of the chickens.

One day, however, a naturalist was passing by, and saw the eagle in the midst of the chickens. Thinking it rather strange, he inquired of the owner as to why it was that an eagle, the king of all birds, should be confined to live in the barnyard as a common chicken. “Since I have given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken,” replied the farmer, “it has never learned to fly. It behaves as chickens behave, so it is no longer an eagle.”

“Still,” insisted the naturalist, “it has the heart of an eagle and can surely be taught to fly.” After talking it over the two men agreed to find out whether this was possible. Gently, the naturalist took the eagle in his arms and said, “You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly.” The eagle, however, was confused; he did not know who he was, and seeing the chickens eat their food, he jumped down to be with them again. Undismayed, on the following day, the naturalist took the eagle up on the roof of the house and urged him again, saying, “You are an eagle. Stretch forth your wings and fly.” But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and world, and jumped down once more for the chicken food.

On the third day the naturalist rose early and took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There, he held the king of birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, “You are an eagle. You belong to the sky as well as to the earth. Stretch forth your wings now, and fly.” The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard and up to the sky. Still he did not fly.

Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the sun, and it happened that the eagle began to tremble, and slowly he stretched his wings. At last, with a triumphant cry, he soared away into the heavens. It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia; it may even be that he occasionally revisits the barnyard. But as far as anyone knows, he has never returned to lead the life of a chicken. Though he had been kept and tamed as a chicken, he was, nonetheless, an eagle. And nothing could change that.

As I think of the parable of the eagle raised as a chicken, I think of the words of St. Augustine, who wrote, “Thou has made us for Thyself, O God, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.” In a real sense the parable of the eagle is every man’s story. You were made to have fellowship with God, to soar with the wings of an eagle far above the barnyard, but you became separated from God through sin that came into the human race.

Instead of fellowshipping with God, we became separated and estranged from our Heavenly Father. As the naturalist lifted the eagle towards the heavens, Jesus was lifted on the cross; and through His death He made it possible for you to be at peace with God, and on the wings of faith to rise above the barnyard filth that defiles and destroys.

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“The preceding material was written by Dr. Harold J. Sala, and is copyrighted. Reproduction for sale or financial profit is prohibited. Permission to reproduce this article was granted by Guidelines, Inc.”
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