COLUMN: Don’t Doubt God

The following article is an opinion piece and reflects the views of only the author and not those of AllOnGeorgia.

Ken Herron Sr is a longtime northwest Georgia resident.

Sometimes as we get older, life after death and eternity in heaven can seem like a fairytale that is not possible. No eternal activity has happened in our lifetime that would help us to know that it is all true.

I sit on my back porch in the quiet and the cool breeze and look at the life that is so visible all around me. It is all so varied and beautiful that I know it did not happen by accident. Man did not invent the oak trees, the dogwoods, the maple trees, the hickory trees, the pine trees or the Mimosa trees. I can see all of these from the comfortable chair in which I’m sitting. My wife loves flowers and our backyard has at least 15 varieties of flowers and flowering bushes.

If I sit for more than a few minutes I will see several squirrels, a dog will walk through the yard, a tabby cat will show up, and a multitude of varied birds will land on the grass or on the limbs of the trees. The birds sometimes come in pairs and the color of the feathers on both birds in the pair will be identical. This in itself is enough to prove that someone bigger than man is in control. The plants, the trees, the birds, and the animals all share something with humans that is called life. Man has not been able to duplicate or create life.

According to the Bible, which is the only book that described how creation happened, Adam was the man who experienced creation. Adam would have related this story to his son Seth. The lifespan of Seth overlap the lifespan of Noah. The lifespan of Noah overlap the lifespan of Abraham. The lifespan of Abraham overlapped the lifespan of his grandson Jacob. Jacob carried the story into Egypt. The creation story was told in Egypt until the time of Moses. Moses wrote it in the Torah and it has been a part of written history since that time. The creation story is not a figment of someone’s imagination.

The human body is far too complicated to have happened by evolution. Which part would have evolved first? The heart is the central pump that distributes the blood that feeds the entire body. The heart would be useless without the blood and the arteries and veins to distribute the blood. The heart would not beat without a signal from the brain. The arteries and veins could not survive without being attached to the bones and muscles. Each organ in the body has a specific duty which must function properly in order for the circulation system to work properly. The food processing system of the body takes food into the mouth and removes the nutrients. It puts the nutrients into the bloodstream as the food passes through the stomach and intestines. The waste is discharged from the body. The head contains a complicated visual system. The eyes receive a visual image which is projected upside down at the back of the eye. The two eyes receive the same image which gives the ability to see depth. The brain instantly combines the images and feeds them right side up into our memory. The hearing system is also very complicated. It takes vibrations from the air and converts them to sounds in our brain. Our muscles respond to thoughts and allows us to sit, stand, turn, walk, and run. When we tire, our brain will force us to sleep and rejuvenate the systems of our body. A human could not exist unless everything started at the same time. Evolution does not allow this.

Man has been able to use engineering and physics to duplicate individual functions of the human body. They have not been able to combine their inventions and produce a human because they cannot create the portion of a human that is called life. Life comes from God.

When God takes away life from a human body it dies. All of the components stop working. In the Bible in the 90th Psalm we are told that our lifespan should be 70 years. If we are strong we may live to be 80 years old. We know that there are a few that live into their 90s and even fewer that cross the 100 year mark.

At the 70 year mark most of us find that we begin to lose some of our awareness and we begin to move a little slower. At the 80 year mark we began to accept certain aches and pains as being normal. As we see our friends began to pass on it affects us psychologically.

Recently I attended a convention where I expected to see a number of friends from the past. It was depressing to visit a vendor’s space and find that my friends had passed on or retired. I only saw five old friends at this convention. A while back I sat on the porch and thought about all of my friends who were younger than I am that have passed away. It made me feel like it was time for me to go. For a number of weeks I lived as if every day might be my last day.

On a recent Sunday morning I watched Reverend Charles Stanley on TV and his message was on courage and encouragement. It seemed that God was telling me he was not through with my life. I have two older brothers, one will be 90 this year, and the other will be 88. My health is better than their health was at my age.

If we can believe that God created us so perfectly and all of the vegetation, animals, birds, and fishes to function in the manner that they do, we should have no problem in believing in heaven as it is described in the Bible. There is a life after death. If we have accepted that Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins and we have received his spirit
into ours we will enjoy the place called heaven.