Thursday, January 22, 2009

Strengthened Testimony in God

It amazes me to think that so many students question their belief in God during their years in college. I've found that the more highly educated I become, the more I see that something beyond us is going on. The other day I was discussing math with my wife. While I like math, I am not that guy that picks up on concepts at the blink of an eye; so when I come to understand something new, it brings about that familiar feeling of "truth". You know the one, that feeling you get when you contemplate the meaning of life or the vastness of the universe, and the only conclusion you can come up with is that God must be responsible for all this. Learning math is a lot like that for me. But taking it a step further brings me even closer to God.
While Math is full of truth, it has its limits. Physics, as we understand it, has its limits. Anything the human race understands has limits. We are all familiar with Newton's Third Law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." This is a law of physics that can not be broken. We live in a world of physical balance. We will never be able to create mass or energy...only manipulate them. And yet, even with all these limits we are subjected to, we have limitless potential.
When dealing with spiritual things, we are not limited in any manner. Is there a limit to joy? Is there a limit to intelligence? Is there a limit to righteousness? Is there a limit to evil? The only limits we face are due to our earthly, imperfect bodies (Alma 19). God has put certain restrictions on our bodies and in our lives, yet we have no spiritual restrictions whatsoever. To put it more simply, we can only hand out so many slices of pizza before it runs out. We do not get more pizza in return. How much charity and love can we hand out? There is no law that puts a limit on this. In fact, the more kindness and love we give to each other, the more we get. It is as though we are breaking all laws of physics. Godly traits grow at an exponential rate. It seems too good to be true at times...unbalanced. But it is a testimony to me that God lives and that he loves us. He wants us to be happy, and he has given us an infinite potential.

1 comment:

Matt and Maggie said...

Very neat,Scott. Insightful. I can relate to the mathematical correlations. I'm so grateful for an eternal perspective-even if it at times is as blurry as a newborn's vision.