“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” –Nikola Tesla
I was listening to Dr. John Lennox, and somehow Einstein’s theory of relativity and the laws of thermodynamics melded with the Lord’s prayer in my head and led me to one of the most exciting phrases I’ve ever heard. You’ve heard it a thousand times too. I never really gave it a thought because I never really understood what it meant. When I did, it blew my mind – and brought me to tears.
“Our father who art in heaven.”
I’ve always misunderstood this reference to heaven. In his studies, Dallas Willard found the original Hebrew would translate as heavens (plural); the first heaven being the atmosphere, the air that surrounds our bodies. Dr. Willard also tells us this use of ‘father’ is intimate rather than formal. You could say this part of the Lord’s prayer as “Our daddy who is as close as the air around us.”
That chokes me up. What blows my mind is the science behind it.
There is a tremendous amount of energy in everything around us. Imagine gazillions of tiny electrons whirling around protons and neutrons. Einstein’s E=mc2 means the amount of energy in, say, a pencil, is equal to its mass multiplied by the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). That’s a lot of energy. I pictured myself on a treadmill trying to produce enough energy to keep a pencil in existence.
Now, imagine the world around you in terms of raw power. How much power is in your chair, your house, this planet? It’s staggering. What about the raging ball of fire that is our sun; 1.3 million earths could fit inside our sun. How much energy would it take to keep that burning? What about my son’s favorite star, Stephenson 2-18? It’s 10 billion times the volume of our sun. Add to that the energy contained in what scientists estimate are the 200 billion trillion stars in our universe. That is a brain melting amount of energy.
And all that energy isn’t running out like a giant battery would. According to the first law for thermodynamics energy is constant and only changes forms. “The total amount of energy in existence has always been the same.“ ~ Clara Moskowitz. So energy is … eternal?
What is energy? We can’t see it. Everything we comprehend in our universe is filled with it. It’s eternal. But even though we know what energy does, as physics Nobel laureate Richard Feynman says, “we have no knowledge of what energy is.”
I think I know what it is.
There is a God. He is invisible. He is eternal. He is so immense that he powers the entire universe without effort. Imagine a mind capable of comprehending not just every human action but every photon inside the firing of every synapse in every mind on earth. How could I possibly comprehend his choices? Yet as colossal as he is, he loves me (and you). If his attention to me animates the very electrons that spin around my atoms, how can he not feel every hurt I feel and also whoop with every triumph? But he takes it even further; he protects me, speaks to me, guides me through life, and loves me so much he’d do pretty much anything for me.
Our daddy who is as close as the air around us.