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Nature's Recycling Program

My mother always said “David, fresh air is good for you.” If I’d known more chemistry as a kid, I would have had an excuse to stay indoors.

There really is no such thing as fresh air - it’s all very old. Every molecule of oxygen and water is the same as it always has been. That means that every atom in your body is so old that it has been places you don’t even want to think about!

Your body is about 70% water. These water molecules have been to some interesting and rather nasty places. Some of it will have been in snow on the mountains, and in muddy sludge in sewers. It will have certainly been inside many different animals, on its continuous trip around the planet.

So you are not the first to use that life-giving air. The millions and millions of oxygen molecules in your lungs are sure to include some that were exhaled when Julius Caesar breathed his last.

Recycling is not a new idea. Nature has been recycling atoms since the moment of creation. Our wonderful, warm wet planet, revolving in space, is like a huge spaceship, with all the doors and windows closed. All the molecules circulating on it stay around, whatever happens to them. Even when you die, the global recycling continues, and your atoms move on to other fascinating places.

So next time you take a deep breath, remember that so-called fresh air has been around for a long time!

The idea of recycling has been around in one form or another for a long time. There are different kinds of recycling. One is simply to reuse something for the same purpose as was originally intended. I remember as a child picking up soft drink bottles along the side of the road and taking them to the local store where Mr. Towns would give me two cents for each one. The beverage company would then take the bottles back, wash and refill them.

Another kind of recycling is to reuse something for a different purpose than that for which it was originally intended. I’ve seen a length of copper wire from an electric motor used for bass fishing. I’ve seen a garden knife made from a broken hacksaw blade with hockey tape wrapped around one end to serve as a handle. I’ve seen the leather of an old boot used to make a washer for a leaking faucet.

The last kind of recycling requires that the current item be destroyed and completely reprocessed. The glass from old juice bottles might end up as part of a car windshield. The steel from an old car frame could theoretically end up in a surgeon’s scalpel. The plastic from a broken toy could find a second life as part of a computer component.

God, too, has a recycling program. He wants to take the indifferent and rebellious, the despised and the haters, the proud and the downtrodden, in short all of humanity and transform them into persons of worth and character through whom His own character may be displayed.

If you are tired of the way you are, maybe it’s time to think about God. Science can only take us so far. It can help us understand how things work, but when it comes to the “why” – the questions of purpose – science is limited. Only God can answer those questions. Specifically, in terms of your life, God intends that you live a full, abundant life which will be satisfying to you and honouring to Him and His original purpose in creation. He can make the changes in your life that you can’t make.

Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." Revelation 21:5

David Humphreys and Ron Hughes
© August 2004