I know that video has been around for a while, but it still amazes me how amazing God made people. And this video is only scratching the surface — consider the intellectual, artistic and psychological feats we can attain! When He was designing us, it wasn’t so that we wouldn’t be able to understand or participate in His works, but so that we would be able to partner with Him in creative, ingenious, imaginative, powerful and unique ways. People really are awesome — by God’s design!
I’m also amazed by how tough God made us. Think about it — humans have the ability to live through some pretty crazy stuff. Arctic cold, desert heat, lack of food, water, and shelter. We have lived through physical and emotional trauma, war, pestilence, grief and torture. We can live under an oppressive regime, or in anarchistic freedom. Yes, if there is one thing that we can do… it’s endure. Movies are made about this stuff. Check out this series of articles by New Scientist called “Maxed Out: Testing Humans to Destruction”.
I believe that people can endure a lot of suffering from external sources if they have internal strength. That’s the key. It takes inner strength to perform extreme stunts, face intense trauma, and live to tell about it. Once our inner strength is lost, we fall. Once fear is given into, hope is abandoned or loneliness takes hold, a person can’t take very much at all — they crumble.
God has been working in my heart over the past while regarding the importance of my dependence on Him and His strength. It’s a simple lesson, but profound. If I don’t have the hand of God on my life, and don’t keep coming to Him for wisdom, energy, direction, guidance and spiritual sensitivity, then I will be powerless. He has let me know, in a very personal way, what life with Him and without Him looks like — what a life with inner strength and without looks like. And let me tell you that life without Him is horrible.
That’s the lesson God is teaching me, and which I am passing on to you. What is happening on my outsides, be it success or failure, pleasure or pain, gain or loss, isn’t nearly as important as what is happening on my insides. I believe He gave me a taste of what life is like without His strength so that I would be desperate and needful of Him, and then be able to pass this along to you. I pray you never have to go through that experience.
We MUST come to Him daily, hourly, minute by minute. We must practice His presence, and our dependence on Him. (Here’s a link to a free classic Christian book called “Practicing the Presence of God” which I highly recommend.)
Remember the words of Ephesians 6:10-13:
“…be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
