By Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Ehrlich

I am retired now but for my entire 36-year ministry as a United Methodist pastor my wife Anna and I would have variations of this same conversation at least several times a year. We would look at a beautiful sunset together, or at a newborn baby, and Anna would say, “How can anyone look at that and say there is no God?!” I would nod and smile appreciatively because I love and support my wife, but I never saw what she was seeing. I saw the same beautiful things she was looking at, but I just didn’t see God in them. For many years I tried to, but I could never see God in those beautiful things. Eventually I gave up and decided that probably Anna was just reacting emotionally to beautiful things or that she had an over active imagination.

In the last two years since I retired, I read every article I could find about quantum physics and one day a few months ago it was like I suddenly put on glasses for the first time. All that reading equipped me with knowledge of what is happening at the atomic level and that helped me to see God’s handiwork beneath the surface of all things. I could see the miracles clearly, not just in sunsets but in every person and object! Great timing, right? Two years after I retire?! For the first time in 38 years of trying I really could understand that everything we can see, hear, feel, taste or smell is a miracle!

God’s Creation of the Universe

Realizing that God is in everything is not a new discovery with me. Writing about 1000 years before the birth of Jesus, King David wrote:

LORD, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world! When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers— the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? O LORD, our Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world! (Psalm 8:1, 3-5, 9 GNT)

Writing about 600 years before the birth of Jesus the prophet Jeremiah revealed that people understood this about God:

Am I a God who is only close at hand?” says the LORD. “No, I am far away at the same time. Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” says the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:23-24 NLT) 

So, God is close at hand and far away at the same time God is everywhere in all the heavens and earth at the same time, this is the theological concept known as the omnipresence of God.

In the following three quotes from Paul’s letter to the Romans and to the Ephesians we see the notion expressed that God can be seen in the things He created, and that God is in and through everything.

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. (Romans 1:20)

For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen. (Romans 11:36)

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.      (Ephesians 4:5-6)

This sounds a bit like Eastern religions, but it points to a universal recognition that God made everything and holds it all together. These passages also are an example of another of God’s qualities which theologians call omnipotence – power over everything.

It is impressive that people have had the same understanding of the nature of God for at least the last 3000 years! It is now even more impressive to me that we know so much more about the universe yet scientists have not disproved the reality of God like they have with so many other things people used to believe two and three thousand years ago.

We know that the Universe began in this way: Everything in the entire universe began as a single point smaller than an atom (How small is a single atom: scientists tell us there are more atoms in a single grain of sand than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in Florida). Then, for some reason which scientists can’t explain, there was a big bang and the entire universe exploded out from that infinitesimally small spec and has been expanding ever since. That explosion was also the beginning of time – there was no time before that.

Through modern telescopes we know that the universe has continued to expand and is now over 90 billion light years across. A short physics lesson: a beam of light in one second travels 186,000 miles; that is equal to traveling around the earth seven times in one second! Now think about a beam of light traveling at that speed for more than 1 billion of your lifetimes. To travel from one end of the expanding universe to the other side it would take you 90 billion years traveling at a speed equal to seven times around the earth in one second.

Don’t be afraid of science. There is a myth that the more you know about the physics of the universe, the less you will believe in God. The opposite is true – the more you know about physics and biology, the more clearly you can see God’s handiwork and that is both a big relief to me as a pastor, but also mind expanding! Quantum physics even helps us understand the mechanics behind eternal life, but that is a whole other article. ( See Quantum Physics Explains Eternal Life.)

Albert Einstein is generally thought of as the smartest man who ever lived. His name has even become an adjective, like “what are you, some kind of Einstein?!” His theories are still guiding scientists 68 years after his death. In August (2023) it was in the news that scientists proved another theory of Einstein’s having to do with the interaction between gravity and time, and in October another of his theories regarding anti-matter was proven. At the end of his life, Einstein said his biggest regret was not getting to know the super intelligent creative force of the Universe. He believed his discoveries and those of other physicists had proven beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of this creative force.

Einstein was convinced that there had to be a super intelligent creative force that put the universe into existence because of the math behind particle physics; it is so perfect and at the same time so improbable, that logically it could not have been an accident, there had to be an intelligent creator behind it.

Einstein was one of the scientists who discovered one of the four forces that govern the formation and activity of atoms and subatomic particles that were unleashed in the big bang. He realized that the ratios and proportions of strength between electromagnetism, gravity, weak and strong atomic forces, (the four forces that control every atom of the universe) are in the exact right proportion to each other to allow the formation and continued existence of atoms.

If any one of the forces were even a tiny bit weaker, atoms would fly apart, any stronger and the universe would collapse into itself. He calculated that the odds of these four forces accidentally being the perfect strength ratio to each other are more than 100 trillion trillion to one against. Therefore, the most logical conclusion was that a super intelligent creative force had to have set up those ratios! In other words, the smartest physicist ever, had a logical scientific reason to believe that the entire universe is a miracle of God’s creation!

God’s Creation of the Earth

Let’s move to our earth. I’ve read several books about the miraculous aspects of the formation and existence of the earth, but I will just give you a few examples of the miraculous aspects that stuck with me.

• The sun of course makes life possible on earth. It has burned for over 4 billion years and is projected to continue to burn for another three billion years. That is pretty miraculous when you consider that the fuel that powers the sun (hydrogen fusing into helium) and for some reason never gets depleted!
• The earth is the exact right distance from the sun to allow life on earth, not too hot and too cold.
• The earth just happens to have an iron core, and that core is magnetized. The earth’s magnetic field repels harmful particles and cosmic rays from the sun that would otherwise destroy all living things.
• Where did all the water come from on earth? The scientists don’t know.
• The moon is a giant hunk of rock that stays in perfect orbit around the earth; it exerts gravitational pull on the oceans causing tides without which scientists say life would not have come into existence.
• The earth is tilted on its axis so as it revolves around the sun we have seasons; in summer the northern half is closest to the sun and in our winter the southern half is closest. The tilt allows the area of land mass that can grow food to be much larger than if the earth was straight up and down on its axis. It rotates on its axis which also makes life possible on all the earth instead of burning one side and freezing the other side.

So, consider the perpetual burning of the sun, the presence of the iron core, the existence of our oceans, the moon and tides, and the rotation and tilt of the earth. All of this together adds up to a miracle when you think about it.

God’s Creation of People

Now let’s look at what is miraculous about / in human beings. Did you know that scientists have proven that there really was an Adam and an Eve? It is true! Every person alive today is a descendant of those two people; the way we know this to be true is through the study of our DNA. Every woman has two X chromosomes. Men don’t have two X chromosomes. Every man has an X and a Y. Since women don’t have any Y chromosomes if you are a man you had to have inherited your Y chromosomes from your father. By analyzing the 62 million base pairs in the DNA of the Y chromosome, scientists have determined that every man on earth has a single common ancestor – all men on earth inherited their Y chromosome from the same man! There actually was a first man.

There also was a first woman that every person on earth, male and female, is descended from and the way we know this is by analysis of the DNA of mitochondrion. Mitochondria are the energy producing parts of our living cells. Mitochondria are found in every living cell in your body, unless you are a man.

The male sperm cell doesn’t contain any mitochondrion, therefore, every person on earth inherited their mitochondria from their mother. By analyzing the mutations in the DNA of mitochondrion, scientists discovered that we are all descended from the same woman. So, every person on earth actually descended from one man and one woman! Our common ancestors did not live 5782 years ago, as some fundamentalists believe the Bible indicates, but approximately 200,000 years ago according to scientists. In any case I think it is pretty miraculous that pre-scientific era writers of the Bible knew, 3000 years ago, that we all share common ancestors as revealed in the Adam and Eve story.  

The book of Genesis says God made Adam from the dirt; in Hebrew Adam means Earthman, and you may have heard that the chemical makeup of our bodies matches the chemicals found in dirt and sea water. Our bodies are made of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, iron, copper, cobalt, iodine, manganese, salt, and zinc. Without any of these elements existing on earth, in concentrations high enough for us to use them, we would not exist. How did these different elements all happen to be found on earth in the right proportions? It is miraculous!

Every element on the periodic table of elements was formed as the result of exploding stars. The illustration below shows what is left after a star explodes. The wispy looking clouds around the center contain the newly formed atoms. All stars are 100% hydrogen burning into helium through fusion. When stars, which are all just distant suns, start to burn out, first, they collapse inward and then explode in a supernova. The force of the explosion is so great that it presses atoms of hydrogen and helium together to form the atoms of the elements. The earth is formed from the dust of exploding suns; clouds of dust that condensed together as the result of gravity over billions of years. So, you and I are literally stardust, formed from exploding stars over billions of years and I think that is pretty miraculous.

Your human body is one of the most complex and sophisticated, and I would argue miraculous, organisms on earth. Your body has nine interconnected systems the integumentary (skin, hair nails and sweat glands), musculoskeletal, respiratory, circulatory, digestive, excretory, nervous, endocrine and reproductive. They all are formed in miraculous ways and work in miraculous coordination with each other. Not only do we not have to tell them what to do, 90% of the time or more we are not even aware that they are busily working inside us. They are just quietly and automatically, doing their work to keep you healthy and to heal you when you are sick or injured. That is all pretty miraculous.

What is going on behind the scenes? Who or what is telling those nine systems what to do?! It’s your DNA. You started out as a single celled organism, your mom’s fertilized egg. Somehow that single cell contained all the info it needed to know to grow you and your nine internal systems. As a fully formed adult you have 100 trillion living cells in your body! Every one of your living cells has the same 16 different components without which they would die. Look at this diagram of the interior of the cell.

In addition to the mitochondria the other parts have names you haven’t thought of since biology class: lysosomes, vacuoles, and my favorite – rough endoplasmic reticulum.  Each of your 100 trillion living cells has a nucleus and each nucleus contains an identical set of 23 pairs of DNA molecules which are the blueprint for your body. Your DNA tells your systems how to form and how to work together with the other systems. Is it not miraculous that 16 vital parts exist in each cell, each one formed differently through the design work of the DNA? Don’t get me started on the miraculous ways our hearing and vision works changing waves into electronic signals for our brains to process.

Now I saved the best for last – your brain. Your brain is an amazing living miracle! Now I know that if you are like me you may suffer from senior moments, or if you are younger you may suffer from CRS – can’t remember, s**t. No matter what you’ve been told about the quality of your brain, your brain is still a living miracle! Let me tell you why.

This seems weird to me, but it is true: Scientists don’t know for sure what exactly consciousness is or where it is located in the mind! They don’t know exactly how our five types of brain waves are generated and why they move like waves across the brain. Consciousness itself and the brain’s ability to store and retrieve information is truly miraculous. There’s more: scientists have proven that our human brains, or more accurately our consciousness, can function on a quantum level. Quantum just means really small and refers to atoms and the parts of atoms and particles of light, and the still mysterious ways and unknown reasons why atomic and subatomic particles act the way they do on this subatomic level.

Scientists have no idea how it happens, but they have proven that our consciousness can work on the quantum level. We can affect the path of photons and electrons with our minds! (See article entitled Quantum Physics Explains Eternal Life.) Scientists are actively trying to figure out how and why we are able to do that. The scientists call our minds’ ability to affect the path of photons and electrons “the observer effect.” To learn more about this subject I highly recommend a Google search when you get done with this article.

So, if you have had the feeling that you can change things by sending positive or negative mental energy, it has been scientifically validated. While you may never be able to levitate a car like Luke Skywalker, the fact that you can definitely move subatomic particles with your mind is pretty miraculous, and it proves that your conscious mind can function on a quantum level.

Several scientists won the Nobel prize for physics last year (2022) for their experimentation proving Einstein’s theory of quantum entanglement (another great subject for Google). Basically, atoms and even molecules can become linked or entangled such that what happens to one instantaneously happens to its entangled counterpart, even across the entire universe!

Not only can this entanglement effect the path of photons and electrons and other particles on a quantum level, but our mind can also be entangled with the mind of God. The apostle Paul tells us that as believers our minds are entangled with God’s; he writes,

“For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:16 NLT).

So, the quantum functioning of our minds is also miraculous!

Winston Churchill said of Russia that it is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Our minds and bodies are miraculous machines, wrapped in the mystery of a truly miraculously formed and equipped planet, inside a miraculously formed and sustained universe!

Thankfulness

What does God want from us in return for the miracles that we are and in which we live?? The Old Testament gives us this advice:

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8),

and Jesus gave us two commandments which he said summed up everything God wants us to do:

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

Both Biblical statements explaining that the things God wants from us are simple but extraordinarily deep. Christians can and do spend their entire lives unpacking and trying to fully live into these requirements.

I want to speak about what it means to walk humbly with God as mentioned in Micah 6:8. Being humble means acknowledging God’s actions to miraculously create the world and give life and form to you and every living thing, thereby producing profound thankfulness in us. It is pleasing to God if we take time daily to think, at least momentarily, about His many miracles and then thank God for them.

If you will take time daily to be thankful, I guarantee good things will happen:

• your thankfulness will open your heart up to the Holy Spirit.
• the Spirit will begin to tug on your spirit pulling you gently closer and closer until eventually you feel the Holy Spirit unite with your spirit to let you know that you are a child of God.
• as a child of God, you will recognize the truth of Jesus’ teaching that we should love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Paul said of God that he is,

“God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Everything comes from him and exists by his power, and in him we live and move and have our being.”

Let us be stunned by the reality that everything is a miracle and exists because of the miraculous power of God and let us be thankful.