Thought for Today
Genesis 27:1 When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, "My son"; and he answered, "Here I am."
Psalm 115:5 They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.
Romans 8:28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
2 Corinthians 6:1 As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.
The headline on the front page of today’s Boston Globe reads, “Global tech outage hits health care hard.” If you were traveling by air yesterday, if you had elective medical procedures scheduled you are probably more than aware of the massive, worldwide disruptions caused by a technology outage.
The internet tells me (via many lines of code) that the number of lines of code in software programs varies significantly depending on the complexity and purpose of the individual program. For example, for iPhone Apps the average is less than 50.000 lines of code. Google’s code base spans 2 billion lines of code for all its services. I have not seen any information on how many lines of code are in the program which caused yesterday’s massive meltdown; but, I did hear one news report that the problem was with an update to the program and was caused by a single line of code.
Problems were reported yesterday with airlines, banks, hospitals and countless other industries. I’m not going to even try to understand a program that might shut down so many diverse industries. But, it does emphasize for me the intricate complexity of our modern world. The first ‘home computers’ appeared on the consumer market in the early 1980s. They were the precursors of our modern computerized world. Today, even the most ubiquitous consumer products have embedded computer chips. I’m sure even toasters come with computer chips!
In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul wrote about all things working together. Paul was speaking about something completely different, because Paul could not have imagined a computerized world like ours today. When I was in college in the 1960s, neither could I have imagined such a world. A world where one line of code out of a total of millions (?) of lines of code in a single program out of millions (?) of computer programs could shut down multiple industries in almost every country.
All of this is much on my mind this morning as I cope with my second day of post-operative recovery. In college I studied a bit about optics. I have read about how our brain receives electronic signals from our 2 eyes and interprets the 2 signals into 1 single image. As I have aged, I have become used to the progressive decline in my vision and our ability to compensate for those old and dim eyes mentioned in the Bible.
On Thursday, my ophthalmologist removed the cataract from my left eye and implanted a new lens. Now my brain is struggling to deal with sharply focused images from my left eye and the ‘old and dim’ images from my right eye. For about 40 years my brain has more or less successfully dealt with those differing images from my separate eyes, first with reading glasses and then with bifocals.
Now my brain is confused. Not as uncommon a situation as I would like, but probably more common than I normally admit . . . but thankfully limited to my vision. The doctor warned me that it will take weeks for my vision to fully adapt to the new imbalance. Just to complicate the issue, he is also scheduling a similar procedure for the other eye.
When “Genesis 2:7 the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being,” God’s creation was more complex than any computer, more amazing than any program or application. God created life itself. And God created our brains with all of their amazing, complex capabilities. Those words of Paul to Rome and Corinth remind me to relish the gift and grace of God and to continue to work with God . . . and to be patient as my brain sorts all of those diverse signals into a new, sharper image.
Stay safe, love God, trust God,
Pastor Ray