The Opportunities for Disaster

Patrick Sinner is the owner and CEO of Sinner’s Domino Entertainment. Yes, “Sinner” is his real name. Recently he tried to break the Guinness world record for the longest domino chain reaction. The old record was a chain reaction of 537,938 dominoes or, “tiles.” Sinner was trying to create a display of 600,000 tiles.

But with so many tiles there were 600,000 opportunities for something to go wrong. So Sinner took every precaution against such a calamity. He selected a gymnasium floor for the site of his massive display. He recruited teams totaling twenty-two workers to labor around the clock, setting up each tile with a pair of tweezers. And he required that they work in total seclusion, keeping the doors of the gym locked to prevent any mishaps. Sinner required his team to work in their stocking feet. No shoes would be allowed to accidentally bump any of the tiles. Even the fans on the HVAC system were kept to a bare minimum, lest any breeze tip one of the tiles.

Sinner and his team labored for nearly two weeks. They had set up 596,229 tiles, with less than 4,000 to go. Then disaster struck. A common house fly landed on one of the tiles in the middle of the vast formation and tipped it over. This set off a premature chain reaction. In a mere fifteen minutes, the fly undid nearly all the work the team had accomplished.

Though falling far short of what they intended, the team did manage to set four world records. Patrick Sinner established the longest domino run, the longest domino wall, the largest spiral, and biggest domino cube. Yet it remained a warning to all that, with so many moving parts, the chances of something going wrong are astronomical.

The Human Body

Now transfer those probabilities for failure to the human body as it develops within the womb. A newborn baby’s body contains about 26 billion living cells. That number is 43,300 times greater than the 600,000 mini tiles. Yet, time and time again God, with a lot of help from the mom, brings forth perfectly healthy babies. Again and again He carefully knits us together in our mother’s womb. He fashions us into the person of His dreams (Ps. 139:13–18). With so many moving parts, replicating themselves and forming into multiple organs, there are billions of opportunities for something to go wrong. Yet, almost all the time, God keeps that from happening. Certainly God’s care and faithfulness are very great.

It is true that humanity has been damaged by sin and God’s curse against it. Yet the human body remains a marvelous and incredibly complex machine. By adulthood 37.2 trillion living cells make up the human body. 50 billion of these are neurons, which carry electrical impulses from the brain and back, sending commands and reporting back information. Complexity and orderliness characterize our world, not chaos and disorder. Only the constant attentiveness and care of a loving Creator makes this possible.

Never doubt God’s existence or His continual involvement in your life. Sadly we never appreciate how fearfully and wonderfully we are made until some component of our health begins to fail. So acknowledge God’s love and Care for you now—and thank Him for His blessings.

PRAYER:

Dear Father in heaven, I acknowledge You as my Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. You have safely guided me through countless dangers, to which I am almost completely oblivious. Trillions of things could have gone wrong through my journey from conception to glory. But You prevented them all. Thank You, O God, for Your great faithfulness. Please open my eyes to the blessings and mercies You pour into my life every day and teach me to praise You. Amen.