Matthew 7: 13-14 13″Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
14″For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
I want to take a slightly different approach to this verse than the usual fire and brimstone the world is evil idea. I want to look at this verse from the view of science. (And I know I’m the last person with authority on this subject, so if I get stuff wrong please let me know.)
Do you know what the odds are of you even existing? Let’s start from the very beginning.
First of all let’s look at life on the earth. In order for it to even begin the life cycle it have to be perfect. After the big bang a great amount of rock had to all come together with ice and form a spherical shape and then drift into orbit around a star, but not just any star, it had to be near just the right kind of star, not to hot, and not to cold. There needed to be a moon creating the cleansing tide systems, and acting as a shield to prevent massive collisions. The tilt of the earth is important too, it prevents us from becoming tidally locked, if that were to happen once side of the earth would always face the sun, and other always wouldn’t. There are over 100 different things about the earth that needed to be just right for life to exist. If any one of them were off just a little there would be no life on the planet. The changes of the earth supporting life are astronomical to begin with.
Once the planet is a go life has to start. Millions of years ago it started, and the formation of a protein had to follow just the right kind of process to even exist. We’ve never been able to re-create this process in a lab. So this whole process started a long time ago, and over time and very specific evolutions life finally formed and crawled it’s way onto land and eventually became a man. If you don’t see the infinite chances of all of this going wrong so far you’re not looking very hard. Everything had to be perfect, what if every organism evolved a different way? How did we get two of the same animal if not for the pre-programmed genetic evolution structure? And even that process must have taken millions and millions of years. Even after a giant asteroid kills all the dinosaurs life still grows. Life at this point in history already has massive odds stacked against it, and we haven’t even gotten to man yet.
I not a scientist, and I may be getting lots of facts wrong in these processes, but I’m convinced that up until the first man appeared in all his Neanderthalic splendor there was so much shear luck being sucked out of the universe that it’s no wonder no other planet has been found supporting evolved life. And even look at early man. He had to find a mate, he had to find some form of shelter, and he needed to do anything he could to survive in the earliest world. He had to create fire, the wheel, irrigation, language, art, communication. I don’t even want to know what the odds of this man even existing are. We’re getting closer to you now, are you seeing what I’m getting at? I doubt it.
Millions of things in the span of mankind could have preventing your existence. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, England. Any wrongly spear or blade or arrow in any war in history and you’d suddenly stop existing. Your ancestors fought with their lives and survived: The dark ages, the plagues, the wars, the journey to the new world, the industrial revolution, world war one and two, anything out of place anywhere in history jeopardizes your very life. Everything that is who you are, even the fact that you don’t live in a third world country was way out of your hands.
The odds of your very life are stacked against you. And you choose the fate of the world after you. All of history is calling out to you, the finger of time is pointing at you. You exist now. For such a time as this. Don’t waste your life. You’re not here just to exist; you are here to do so much more. Anything!
Wide is the road that leads to destruction. This isn’t just about life now, it’s about all of history, and destruction is all around you. The path to your life has been small and narrow weaving in and out of the fabric of time itself. History has given you a chance; don’t squander it.
Live for something more! See the odds of your life and make them count for something. There is a 1×10 to the power of a really high number chance that you are here right now today.
Do you feel small yet?
I don’t know the real science, or even the real math, but this is just how I see it. Life is a gift, and to live it just for ourselves is a waste of that gift. Every person’s life is just as rare and special as yours, what if we started treating each other like the gift that we are.
So do good! Be kind! Love others! We do not exist to live life for our own desires; we exist to help the people around us live their gift of live to the fullest. Everything is bigger than you, you’re such a small part of a much bigger plan. No one remembers the selfish, but who can forget the selfless?
That’s enough rambling for today.
Ps. When you add in an all loving God the chances of you surviving the human era stay the same, but purpose for living is given a whole new meaning.
