Today in my physics class we were learning about the big bang. Stay with me here. I don’t know whether or not you believe in the big bang, and frankly, I don’t really care. This isn’t about the big bang. This is about you, and it’s about me. In order to make my point, however, I need to explain something about this theory. So buckle up and get ready for some science.
According to the big bang theory, a long, long, long time ago the universe was nothing but a miniscule, incredibly dense pocket of particles. Each particle has an antiparticle, and when the two meet, they annihilate and form light. Think about that. Every single particle had an antiparticle, and these were colliding and destroying each other. If that was the case, everything should have been destroyed, leaving only light. Obviously that’s not the case. So what happened? Somehow, some of the particles must have survived. How many particles? Enough to form all the planets and all the stars in all the galaxies in the entire universe. How many particles is that?
One in a billion.
One particle out of every one billion particles.
1/1000000000
To put this number in perspective, if there were as many particles in the beginning of the universe as there are people on earth right now, seven of them would have survived. Seven. Well, there were more than seven billion particles in the universe. A lot more. And an unbelievably small fraction of them survived.
How could that have happened?
“By mistake,” says my professor. “You are an accident.”
That’s where he’s wrong. Read these next words carefully, my friend.
You are not an accident.
Those particles – those one in a billion – came together to form a glowing ball just the right size, to create a little rock at just the right distance, and eventually, to create me – and you’re going to tell me it was all a cosmic fluke?
No.
When my professor said those words, “You are an accident,” they struck me to the core. They made me shudder. My mind immediately rebelled. No way, I thought. No way I’m here by chance.
Forget the improbability of that happening and think about what it would mean for us, personally, if that were the case.
What would be the point?
If we exist only because of some great cosmological accident, then what the heck is the point of our lives? There’s no reason for us to exist. In fact, by this logic, we shouldn’t exist. We are accidents, like my professor said. What do we do in the face of an accidental existence?
“Take advantage of it,” some would say. “Live it up while you’ve got the chance.” Get the best job, make the most money, have the best car, house, life. Me, me, me. Get, get, get. Only it’s never enough.
You will never have it all. There will always be more, and you will never be satisfied.
I think I know what my professor would say if I asked him to tell me the purpose of his “accidental” life.
“To learn all I can.”
And I understand that. We as humans are naturally curious. I certainly am. I’m not majoring in astronomy and physics because I like math. I’m curious. I want to know more about our universe. There is nothing wrong with that.
But that can’t be all there is.
We can never know it all. There will always be another mystery, some confounding problem that cannot be solved.
“I’ll get one step closer to solving that mystery, so that the next generation can build upon what I’ve discovered.”
And they’ll get one step closer, and the generation after them will get another step closer, and the mystery will still never be solved. Even if it is solved, another one will be there.
Your life will be forgotten. Meaningless. An accident.
That’s depressing.
But that’s not the whole story.
What if – again, stay with me here – what if those one in a billion particles were not an accident? What if each one was chosen specifically? What if it all happened for a reason?
Well, that’s already comforting. That would mean that our existence has a purpose. Even if we don’t know what that purpose is, we know it exists. That’s better than nothing.
I can go one step better than that. I know what my purpose is.
I know the one who picked out each of those particles way back at the beginning of the universe. Not only that, he looked at those particles and knew, way back then, which ones would combine to become me.
I am talking about God. The God. Of the universe. My God.
He could have just snatched out some particles at random, sent them on their merry way, and said, “Good luck!” He could have, but he didn’t. He picked out each one and put them together to make me exactly the way he wanted me to be. Little old me, less than insignificant on the scale of the universe, hand crafted by the Creator.
And he loves me.
How could he not love his creation?
Think of someone making a model car, or airplane, or ship. They put so much time and effort into their creation, painstakingly putting every piece exactly where it belongs. They don’t do it just because they were told to, or because they feel some obligation to do it. No. They do it because they love it. And when they finish their model, they don’t hide it away in a drawer somewhere. They display it proudly on a shelf where people can see it and they say, “Look what I made.”
“Look what I made.”
God, the God of the universe, says this about me, and he says it about you. He says it about every single person on this little rock floating through space.
He says it even though we keep making mistakes, the same ones over and over again, and new ones every day. We are his creation and he will never, ever give up on us.
He loves us so much that he sent his only son to die for us.
For me.
For you.
For every bad thing that anyone has ever done and will ever do.
Because he loves us, and we are his.
So the next time you look around and wonder what the meaning of it all is, what your purpose is, why you’re even here at all, remember this:
You are not an accident.
You were created individually by the God of the universe, and he loves you more than you could ever imagine. You, one tiny person on one tiny planet, are more important to him than all the stars in the sky.
I have a purpose. I live for the God of the universe.
What’s your purpose?
Do you have questions about this? Would you like to talk to me about it? Send me a message or leave a comment.