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Incredible, Amazing You!

Incredible, Amazing You!

I think that sometimes, we take ourselves for granted. We don’t really realise how incredible we are. And not just ourselves … we also take others for granted.

So, here are a couple of amazing facts about each one of us that you may not know? Totally amazing:

FACT # 1 – Your DNA

The first one has to do with your DNA. It’s the code on which all your physical attributes are written.

Your DNA is a double strand of specialised protein that is replicated precisely, exactly, identically in every cell in your body. It’s your genetic thumbprint if you will. Your DNA is what makes you absolutely unique – unless you are one of those very rare people with an identical twin.

So let me ask you, if you where able to string every strand of DNA in your body together end to end – how far do you think it would reach?

From Kolkata to Delhi perhaps … about 1,500 kilometres. That’s rather a long way for our DNA to stretch isn’t it? But no, its further than that.

What about from Sydney to London. Now that is a long way. That’s about 17,000 kilometres. Is it that far? No our DNA stretches further still.

What about 10 times around the equator … 400,000 kilometres? Well, actually no – that’s still way too short. Gee – what next?

How about to the moon and back 10 times.  That’s almost 4 million kilometres. Nope. Still not far enough.

Okay let’s try the sun and back.  That’s 300 million kilometres. This is getting exciting isn’t it? But no, that’s still not far enough. Your DNA if we could string it end to end, would reach much, much farther than that. Here’s the simple mathematics.

Each cell in your body has around 2 metres of DNA – now isn’t that surprising – how does all that DNA fit into such a tiny cell? And you have around 100 trillion cells in your body. So if we multiply the 2 metres by 100 trillion, we get 200 trillion metres, or 200 billion kilometres of DNA. That’s an awfully big number. How far is 200 billion kilometres? 

Well, to be precise, it’s 667 trips to the sun and back.

Isn’t that completely amazing? And here’s the second fact about you.
 

FACT #2 – What You’re Worth

What do you think is the going market price for all the chemicals in your body?

You know, if you could value the potassium and the iron and the water and the oxygen and the sodium and all the other chemicals that make up your body at the going market prices, how much would you be worth??

Well the answer is somewhere between $1.50 and $2.50 US.

When we just look at our physical components, we’re not worth much are we?


 

What Does That All Mean?

But when I bring those two amazing facts together, here’s the conclusion I come to.

You and I are totally, totally amazing.

With a couple of dollars worth of chemicals, you and I are made up of complex, intricate, genetic material that will stretch 667 round trips to the sun. Any way you look at that reality – it’s just completely mind blowing.

And if you set out to drive that distance in a car say at 100 kph without stopping, do you know how long that would take you? Just under 230,000 years. Do you get the picture?

You really are amazing!

Our value isn’t in the raw chemicals that make up our bodies. Our value is who we become when those chemicals are arranged in a very special way. Not are you and I physically amazing, but we are emotionally and spiritually amazing. We each have unique skills and gifts that very few people around us have.

Now I know. You’ve lived with those skills and gifts all your life. And so you think they’re nothing special.

But perhaps you’re able to sing or draw – I can’t do either of those things. Perhaps you have a great engineering mind, or perhaps you have a gentleness and kindness and concern for other people that the rest of us don’t quite have.

So, let me just leave you with this vital fact about yourself. You are truly an amazing person.

And it doesn’t matter what the world, what society, what other people say or think. We each have a unique gift or ability in life. We are each amazing.

So … can I please encourage you, implore you – to wake up to your unique talents and abilities … and please, don’t waste them. You have so much potential to live an amazing life. Please don’t get to the end of your life just to discover that … you wasted it.

Remember – you are one of a kind. Totally amazing.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret,intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.In your book were written all the days that were formed for me,when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end —I am still with you. (Psalm 139:13-18)

13 Comments

  1. Hi Bernie,

    I have just listened to your piece on UCB about Superman and God being both willing and able- the Lord really spoke to me through you. I can testify that he is not only willing and able but also that he is acting right now to heal us through each other! I am a cradle Catholic in charismatic renewal and I really think the faiths should be more united. An amazing priest who died last year Fr Alan Fudge, a real prophet of our time, always used to say that it was a scandal that Christians are not united and it is such a bad witness to non believers. May God bless you abundantly. Amen.

  2. Hi Bernie, Thanks for the awesome facts we really serve and have an amazing Father. He is the beginning and the end and the more you unpack the more exciting the journey becomes. Stay blessed, I truely appreciate you for who you are.

  3. Thanks for posting this entry. I needed to read it.

  4. I read the bible a bit but i also watch shows about the universe and bernie becuase we don’t live in a vacum you might apprecaite the other view point.

    Berni have you listen3d to echoes by pink floyd “An no one showed us to the land and no one knows the where’s or whys but something stirs and something tries and start to climb towards the light”

    Sometimes i find myself gravitating to a light but i don’t know what it is?

    You might appreciate confortably numb “When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye, I turned to look but it was gone,I cannot put my finger on it now the child is grown,the dream is gone”

    We are growing up that one day too early, it has become more like weeks in advance of late.We are saturated by technology will it be the end of us or will it be that technology becomes us

    Jesus was the rock that appeared sometimes. Berni one disturbing thing i saw was we may even inject a form of engineered life into the rocks themselves so they can talk.

    We are made from flesh and bone, on the other side if we take the possibility of new technology is it a way to inject life into the atoms themselves so the universe dose not grow cold and totally void one day.

    What does the bible say about this?

  5. Hello Berni,
    Wow, that info is amazing. It’s really TOO much for our minds to take in! ‘Our God is an awesome God’ – to quote a song. How people can believe that we evolved from ??? never ceases to amaze me!

    I am 58 and have been privileged to know The Lord for 13 years now – HE came to me at a time when I was very low – HIS timing is always right. My life changed forever from that day, not necessarily in the form of ‘an easier road’, but to realise that we have a friend to walk & talk with when the going gets tough.

    I have felt HIS presence and love on so many occassions – and the strength HE has given to me to get through – well I don’t have the words.

    I am a cancer survivor and have MS – the worst came when I lost my dear husband to motor neurone disease three years ago – BUT I am now in HIS light and am eternally grateful. I would like to share a small poem which says it all:

    God’s Promise
    God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow or sun without rain.
    But God did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears & a light for the way.
    And for all who believe in His kingdom above,
    HE answers their faith with HIS everlasting LOVE.

    May God bless your great work Berni,
    Thank you,
    Elizabeth

    • Elizabeth

      Thank you so much for your powerful testimony … and your poem.

      To God be the glory!

      🙂

      Berni

  6. Berni, that’s one of my favourite psalms and i have heard you say it many times now like a rolling symphony.

    You are right we have the capacity to be what god intended us to be. I guess it’s still the same old question “To be or not to be” and what do we want to be? we were given the choice!

    As the psalm suggests ” In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed”.

    Sounds a bit like pre destiny as individuals and as part of greater creation and humans being gods crowning glory.

    So in the end when it all comes together when we all come together, it will be right i think.

    Genes, memes what ever we want to call it’s getting harder as i get older to think this all happened by chance, may be i don’twant to believe this will all end one day

    Maybe one day it all disapears one day the universe will get cold and empty forever and there will be no history nothing to be contrasted by a consciousness. How precious is life now for all of us!

  7. Thanks Berni, I just needed some encouragement after a fairly “low” week.

    • Praying for you Ron. Trust that all is okay.

      Berni

      • hi Berni..another thought provoking week coming up..thanx to you, your broadcast and your blog, mail etc. Yes we are special and God loves us

  8. I am so happy for GOD Creating us humans. I think we were an experiment, it’s just too bad that some people had to let greed run their lives. This will be our downfall.

    • I don’t believe humans are experiements.

  9. Hi Berni,

    mmm…, I wonder your motivation behind this post…

    But I must say…, pretty obvious isn’t it…

    “Genesis 1:27
    So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

    The way I look at it…, we’re amazing, because we came from an AMAZING CREATOR.

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