"It Passes All My Understanding"

I have a really great friend named Miriam. We met six years ago this month. She lived across the street from me. We belong to different religions but we are sisters. We helped each other out when we were sick, cooking meals for each other, we'd watch each others kids, we'd talk almost every day and we were there for each other. I cherish our friendship. We were neighbors for about a year and a half and then she moved. And since then I have moved from our old neighborhood as well. I love her dearly and will be forever thankful for her friendship.

I'm so glad we still keep in touch.

A couple of years ago she introduced me to a favorite CD of hers called, "He Gives Flowers to Everyone" by Cherie Call.

I put the CD in this morning and I just love the feeling it brings into my home. Thank you Miriam for being my friend and sharing those things that give me encouragement and hope in my Savior.

These are the lyrics to one of the songs that I love on this CD:

"It Passes All My Understanding"- by Cherie Call

I was sitting on a southbound plane
I was buried in a magazine
When the man in the next seat over
Wanted to talk to me
He talked about the universe
He talked about Saturn's rings
He said "I might be an atheist
except for just one thing:

It passes all my understanding
How it all worked out just right
The distance that we live from the sun
The stars that shine at night
We may prove that it was just an accident
But how did it begin?
It passes all my understanding"

I told him, "you are a scholar
You know things that I don't know
But I believe a God in heaven
Made everything below
And I know we are His children
I've known it since I was two
But when it comes to being struck with awe
I'm just like you

"It passes all my understanding
All the beauty we have here
From the majesty of the canyons
To a tiny baby's ear
And even when I can't believe it
He still believes in me
It passes all my understanding"

We watched the sun set through the clouds
In a tiny little airplane window
With people sleeping all around
And I thought of how we just expect this world to be
And when the flight attendant passed me by
I threw away my magazine

It passes all my understanding
How the Lord knows both our names
And that He made this world for everyone
That was sitting on that plane
And in spite of all of man's distractions
He offers us His peace
That passes all my understanding.

Evidence of the Reality of God

My husband and I read this article together last night. I know that God lives and loves us all. We are His children and He loves us more than we could ever comprehend. Evidences of God's existence can be found everywhere, if we only open our eyes!

"Naturalism’s explanations of the origins of life and the miracle of our bodies often appear convoluted when placed side by side with the simple truths of the revealed word and divine scripture.

With its 107 million cells, connected to the brain by over 1 million neurons, the eye is more perfect than any camera ever invented. It caused Charles Darwin to humbly admit, “That the eye with all its inimitable contrivances … could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest sense.”1

The Psalmist wrote, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 53:1). Such a foolish disbeliever ought to look at his hands. Seventy muscles contribute to hand movements. Much of the rest of the body is devoted to optimizing the complex function of the hand. There are no muscles in the fingers. The sole purpose of the forearm, its muscles and bones, is to move and position the hand.

To observe a miracle, look at a baby’s creased hand. Its initial movements are uncontrolled. Shortly after the child’s birth, the hand will be able to grasp, curl, push, lift, sense hot and cold, respond to pain by withdrawing, heal itself, and display great strength and extraordinary sensitivity. These hands will be used thousands of times each day without forethought.

Your miraculous thumb is controlled by nine individual muscles and three major hand nerves. Sir Isaac Newton is reported to have said: “In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”2

Paul Brand, renowned orthopedic hand surgeon, wrote: “We use our hands for the most wonderful activities: art, music, writing, healing, touching. Some people go to concerts and athletic events to watch the performance; I go to watch hands. For me, a piano performance is a ballet of fingers—a glorious flourish of ligaments and joints, tendons, nerves, and muscles.”3

The infant Son of Man once possessed tiny hands. His hands, too, grew to accomplish their intended purposes. He used them to touch and heal the blind and infirm. His hands threw the money changers out of the temple. His hands reached upward in prayer, outward in blessing, and downward from the cross.

The fool proclaims in his heart that there is no God, but our eyes, hands, hearts, and souls unhesitatingly testify to the contrary.

One of my brothers is a physician. During medical school he was assigned to study anatomy in companionship with an agnostic. Their education eventually required that the two of them carefully examine and dissect a cadaver. They studied the incredibly complex yet harmonious systems of the body. They noted the body’s power to correct its own deficiencies and to send healing antibodies to the place of injury or infection. They learned of over 150 trillion cells within the body. If set end-to-end, these cells would encircle the earth more than 200 times. Today medical students learn of more than 1 billion miles (1.6 billion km) of DNA in one human body. My brother and his fellow student learned of a brain that continually receives signals from 130 million light receptors in the eyes, 24,000 hearing receptors in the ears, 10,000 taste buds, and hundreds of thousands of receptors in the skin, with specialized commissions to recognize touch, vibration, cold, heat, and pain. My brother and his friend became silent as they contemplated the miracle they were examining. Sensing the moment was right, my brother challenged: “Coincidence is a marvelous thing, isn’t it?” His agnostic classmate responded, “You win.”

This earth departs from its orbit of the sun by only one-ninth of an inch (2.82 mm) every 18 miles (29 km). If, instead, it changed by one-tenth of an inch (2.54 mm) every 18 miles, we would all freeze to death. If it changed by one-eighth of an inch (3.18 mm), we would all be incinerated.4 Did this all happen by accident?

Alma spoke to us, as well as to Korihor, testifying, “Yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator” (Alma 30:44- Book of Mormon).

The doubter requires too much of us when he asks us to believe that the miracles of eyes and hands and DNA and order in the universe all happened by chance. The passage of time, even long intervals of time, is not a “cause” and provides no answers without an intelligent designer.

The evidence of Heavenly Father’s existence is everywhere: in every newborn babe and in every system, part, and parcel of the unending and orderly universe, including our own bodies. He is evidenced in every sunset, work of art, and passage of music, all of which He has provided to gladden the heart and bring beauty to our lives. Richard Swinburne said: “God paints with a big brush from a large paintbox and he has no need to be stingy with the paint he uses to paint a beautiful universe.”5

It is not possible to contemplate the immeasurable vacuum and purposelessness that would exist in our lives if He were not there. We would regret the passing of every day and the passing of every loved one, knowing that neither time nor relationships could be extended. We would approach the autumn and then the winter years of life with crescendoing fear. Every day of our lives we should thank Him that He is there and that this life is not all there is."

1. As quoted in Bert Thompson and Wayne Jackson, The Case for the Existence of God (1996), 33.
2. As quoted in Paul Brand and Phillip Yancey, “The Scars of Easter,” Christianity Today, Apr. 5, 1985, 20.
3. Christianity Today, Apr. 5, 1985, 20.
4. See Bert Thompson and Wayne Jackson, The Case for the Existence of God (1996), 20.
5. Is There a God? (1996), 63.

-By Elder Douglas L. Callister Of the Seventy (From a devotional address given at Brigham Young University–Idaho on November 8, 2005. For the full text, please visit www.byui.edu/devotionalsandspeeches.)

Something to Really Think About

The following is a story about Sir Isaac Newton. I read it some time ago but cannot find the author. Whether this conversation really took place or not.... it's something to think about.

"Sir Isaac Newton, the British scientist, once had a skillful mechanic make him a miniature replica of our solar system, with balls representing the planets geared together by cogs and belts so as to move in harmony when cranked. Later, Newton was visited by a scientist friend who did not believe in God.As Newton sat reading in his study with his mechanism on a large table near him, his friend stepped in. Scientist that he was, he recognized at a glance what was before him. Stepping up to it, he slowly turned the crank, and with undisguised admiration watched the heavenly bodies all move in their relative speed in their individual orbits. Standing off a few feet he exclaimed, 'My! What an exquisite thing this is! Who made it?
'Without looking up from his book, Newton answered, 'Nobody.'
Quickly turning to Newton, the infidel said, 'Evidently you did not understand the question. I asked who made this?'
Looking up now Newton solemnly assured him that nobody made it, but that the aggregation of matter so much admired had just happened to assume the form it was in.
But the astonished infidel replied with some heat, 'You must think I am a fool! Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I'd like to know who he is.
Laying aside his book, Newton arose and laid a hand on his friend's shoulder.'This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?' "