Wading through life

People magazine names ‘Bachelor of the Year’

“Human Genome More Complicated Than Ever Realized, Scientists Say“

Well… duh.

When are we going to realize that the more we attempt to learn about this thing called Creation, the more we’ll realize we don’t know?

The collaboration of researchers… looked at roughly 1 percent of the entire human genome, concluding that the 95 percent of the genome previously believed to be superfluous actually plays a major role in regulating how DNA expresses itself.

God doesn’t do anything superfluous.

When researchers announced they had mapped the human genome in 2003, they knew it was made up of over 3 billion base pairs of DNA.

However, only between 1.5 and 5 percent of that — encompassing the areas known as “genes” — was involved in actually making proteins. The rest was termed “junk DNA.”

God doesn’t make junk.

In a paper released in the journal Nature, scientists say they have found that much of that so-called junk DNA is actually involved in regulating how genes build and maintain the body.

Now you’re catching on. Meaning lies behind the apparent madness.

Greally likens the genes to musical instruments, and the regulatory regions of the genome found in this study to an orchestral score — the instructions necessary to make the whole symphony come together.

This musical comparison is a revelation God gave to some of his people a while ago. (Check out the description for session #7 of the Quantum Physics, Music and the Prophetic conference. I’ve been thinking about purchasing the audio of it for a while because it really intrigues me.)

An important finding was how different human and animal DNA are.

Hmmm… Not surprising.

While the new advance adds to the understanding of the genome, researchers point out that completing the mapping will take time. The complexity of the genome, Collins said, is something he feels all the researchers are awe of.

“We are intended to be complicated,” he said, “and we obviously are.”

Yes. Yes we are. “Fearfully and wonderfully made,” is how He puts it. (Psalm 139:13-16)

This might be hard to visualize, but bear with me.

I was doing an in-home workout just now. For Christmas, I received exercise tubing—three several-foot-long rubber tubes with handles on each end. The three are different thicknesses, meaning the thicker ones offer more stretching resistance than the thinner ones. So, by mixing combinations of the three together, I can vary the “weight” of my “lifts.”

Anyway, to do a bench press-like exercise, I thread the tubes through a device which attaches to a door. One does this by closing the door on the device. A thicker portion remains outside the door and a thinner portion passes through the crack between the door and the frame.

This method has almost always been fool-proof. Until today. Today, when I set up my “bench press” on a door I’d never used before and as I pressed the handles away from myself for my first rep, my bare back was greeted violently with high-velocity tubing and a loosed door-harness device.

I immediately screamed, swore and cursed the crappy door for letting lose from its shut position. I proceeded to check my back in the mirror to assess the damage. Welts only; no cuts.

I then thought about Christ, who bore the nine-tails and by whose stripes we are healed. And I realized my pain wasn’t so great anymore.

Matt. 27:51-53 is probably one of the craziest passages in the Bible:

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Such was the power of Christ’s death and resurrection that not only did the temple veil tear in two and the whole earth quake and rocks split, but many people rose from the dead! Wouldn’t that just be crazy… to see someone who’d been dead for days, weeks, years, decades even, walking around town as if they’d never died?

Google the passage and you’ll find some interesting commentary on it. Some scholars point to it being a fulfillment of Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones.

Apartment Chaos

Since I’m a terribly infrequent blogger these days (I really hope to regain my voice and begin blogging more consistently, but I will promise nothing), I thought it would be good to update on something rather unimportant—my apartment.

I moved in nearly two months ago and couldn’t really afford to furnish it very well. My old roommate Scott graciously gave me many things that were collecting dust at our old house, my parents’ old table is still hanging in there and I bought a bed. But for the most part, it’s barren.

But that is all in the process of changing, thanks to a new job coming my way June 15.

Yes, that’s right. My days at Spring Arbor University are over. Sorry for not mentioning this when it was “breaking news” several weeks ago. The Reader’s Digest version is that a friend of mine at Foote Hospital, who will be my new boss, began recruiting me back in November for a Web job there. I interviewed there a few times in April and by mid-May, I had landed the job. June 1 was my last day at SAU.

The significant raise I’ll be receiving from my new employer is enabling me to by some much-needed supplies for my place. It’s getting kinda old not having a couch (yes, I could have bought a temp from Goodwill or something… I’m not complaining) or bookshelves. I’m weird in that I hate temporary solutions. I’m a do-it-once / do-it-right-the-first-time person. Therefore, my apartment has remained in a -just-moved-in state since mid-April. Though, I suppose my mindset would have been quite different had I not had this job prospect before me. I would probably have resolved myself to filling it up with local Craig’s List items.

So, I hope this chaos I’m living in with simmer down by mid-next week when my rug and couches arrive and I’ll truly be able to feel at home when I’m home.