Spiritual Lessons from Biology

            The loudest animal on our planet is also our largest toothed predator:  Physeter macrocephalus,  the sperm whale. People are surprised to hear that sperm whales make the loudest vocalizations, perhaps because we imagine them as serene and calm—the silent beasts of the deep. In his book  Deep,  explorer and author James Nestor describes an account when biologists were diving with these animals (diving with whales the best way to study their behavior). One whale swam directly at one of the researchers. Startled, the man held up his arm to try and stop the whale. In response, the whale let out a small grunt and swam past the man. This grunt was enough to freeze the man’s arm in place for three hours. The voice of a sperm whale can literally vibrate a human body to death. We now know that sperm whales disorient and may even stun their prey with loud sound bursts called ‘gunshots’. It’s the rarest of all sperm whale vocalizations. But the true reason these whales have such a pow

  “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” --Romans 12v2   People sometimes ask me: “If Satan rebelled in Heaven, how do we know we won’t do the same thing when we get there?” It’s a valid question! Jesus describes how He saw Satan fall like lightning (Luke 10v18). Similarly, Ezekiel 28v13-17 describes the fall of Satan who was once the “signet of perfection” (v12) and an “anointed guardian cherub” (v14, v16) placed high above other angels. God declares, “Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your beauty” (v17). Similarly, in Isaiah 14 we read of the beauty and power of Satan, who is described as a “Day Star” (v12) that was “cut down to the ground” because of his pride (v12). We even have some suggestions that when Satan was cast out of heaven, one third of the angels went with him (Revelation 12v4)[1]. How could Satan, who was called a signet of perfection, have rebelled against God? If angels can turn their backs on God in heaven,

Some decades ago, Johns Hopkins University conducted a survey of about  8,000 students from 48 colleges. The analysis was part of a two-year study sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health. The purpose was to determine what these college students considered most important in life. Surprisingly, only 16% of the students said ‘money’ while 78% said ‘finding a purpose and meaning to my life’.[1] I think an excellent follow-up study would be to track these people down today and ask them if they indeed found a purpose and meaning to their lives.   Why is it so hard to find purpose and meaning? Why is something essential to living well so elusive? I believe part of the answer is firmly rooted in fear. I once saw a cartoon of Kermit the Frog sitting in front of a doctor. The doctor is holding up Kermit’s x-ray, which shows a human hand inside of Kermit’s head. The speech bubble above the doctor reads, “What I’m about to tell you will change your life forever. Are you really sure yo

  Have you ever noticed the questions people ask when they first meet you? They usually ask what your name is, what you do for work, or where you go to school.  They don’t ask, “who are you?” It’s a simple question, but a jarring one. If someone asked you that question right now, how would you respond?   Perhaps you’d revert to one of the former questions by giving your name, your occupation, and so on. But those things aren’t really who you are. An ancient Greek maxim states simply: “Know yourself.” Do we truly know ourselves? Or do we only have a handle on who we are with relation to external circumstances like jobs or families?   Socrates argued that it’s important to know ourselves so that we can understand our meaning in life. He said, “the life unexamined is not worth living.” But how can we truly know ourselves? We are lost to ourselves, and this is nothing new, as proven by the many ancient cross-cultural adages prompting us to find ourselves. G.K. Chesterton said it well when

A few months ago I was traveling through the mountains of Honduras. I was there to speak to farmers about plans to restore their forests. I was staying in a tiny village high in the hills at a camp called Granadilla, where most people get around on horseback due to the rugged streets. One afternoon I was in the camp when I heard all the people around me start shouting, “Zapato! Zapato!” In Spanish, ‘zapato’ means ‘shoe’. I wondered,   why is everyone shouting about shoes?!   Then I noticed a small dog running excitedly from person to person. Everyone was smiling and clapping. Apparently, this little dog was named ‘zapato’ because whenever she found a shoe, she would steal it and run away with it. Zapato had been adopted by the people of the Granadilla camp and they were all very fond of her. But the little dog had accidentally been sold to a man passing through Granadilla, and he lived far away in a town called Tintel. The people were very sad and assumed they would never see their pe

            My car died on the highway and had to be towed. My best friend, who is an absolute saint, picked me up and brought me to the dealership while we waited for my car to show up. While we were sitting in her car, we rolled the windows down and let in the delicious scents of spring. The air was warm and balmy, and full of birdsong. It tasted like life itself, crisp as an apple, and soothing as a mother’s song. We watched some robins hopping across the sun-dappled lawn. They were returning to the area on their route along the 37-degree isotherm. I can’t imagine how hungry they must have felt, having migrated 1000 miles from their wintering grounds in Mexico where they’d had only small fruits to eat all season. The birds seemed happy to find the lawn packed with earthworms and were merrily gulping down all that they could find. My friend was fascinated by the robins’ behavior—how they stood perfectly still with their heads sideways only to suddenly throw their heads full-force int

     Imagine you attend a lecture by a prominent Christian Apologist. As you listen to his presentation, you find his argument for human purpose to be elegant, compelling, and inspirational. At the end of the lecture, as the crowd begins filing out of the auditorium, your friend turns to you and remarks that she’s hesitant to believe anything the speaker said because he’d quoted the atheist philosopher Frederick Nietzsche’s famous line, “He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how’.”[4] You discuss other aspects of the talk but your friend is adamant: anyone who quotes an atheist is probably not a real Christian.                How would you respond to this friend? Would you agree with her? Should we avoid ideas that come from other camps? The above conversation is hypothetical, but likely semblant of a real conversation you’ve had at some point in your life. It raises many valid questions about how we approach our thought lives and how we sift through the vast sea of infor