How Big Are Ya?

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” So says the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes. Everything we do is pointless. Not exactly the most uplifting and positive message. Yet that seems to be the main point through much of this little book. No wonder most people know nothing about it except for the song “Turn, Turn, Turn”(60’s tune by The Birds if anyone under 25 is reading this).


Unexpectedly, however, this message seems to resonate with me at this point in my spiritual journey. Not in a practical immediate way. I’m not feeling life has no meaning or that there’s no point in trying. It’s much deeper. God has really been speaking to my heart about time and space, and the incredibly insignificant amount of either that my existence seems to take up. Still, God speaks through His word of my significance and importance so the question becomes, “Why is what I do in my life important and what is the most important thing I am supposed to do?”

Before I try answering that (No, I’m not sure I have the answer yet) I want to expound a bit on what it means to really understand our place in this world. Let’s begin with me. Currently I take up approximately 215lbs. of mass in the physical universe taking up approximately 6.75 cubic feet of space Based upon current averages, I can expect to live approximately 75-80 years (minus whatever the diabetes might subtract and plus the relatively good health I have experienced otherwise). We will round to 80 for mathematical simplicity.

As we look at this it is very important to understand how exponents work and how they can deceive the true scope and size of something. You see we use exponents every day without even realizing it. Everyone knows place value. We know Ten is 10 times bigger than one, and that One Hundred is 10 times bigger than Ten and that One Thousand is 10 times bigger than One Hundred. The deceptive part is that we don’t use a new term for place value until One Million, which is actually 1000 times bigger than One Thousand. The same goes for One Billion, which is 1000 times bigger than One Million, or 1000 x 1000 times bigger than One thousand. We completely lose scope and understanding of what these numbers mean, but let’s try. The earth has over 6.5 billion people currently living on the planet or 6.5 x 109 . Let’s say we are discussing a disease that kills 1 in 1000 every year or 1.0 x 10-3 or .001 of the population. The result of applying these numbers would be that 6.5 x 106 people or 650,000 people die from the disease every year which obviously sounds much more ominous than 1 in 1000.

Now back to me and my 6 feet of linear existence. The circumference of the earth is 24,901.55 miles or 2.5 x 104. I am .0002 miles tall or 2.0 x10-3. This makes me 1.25 x 107 times shorter than the earth. It would take 1,250,000 clones of me lying head to foot to circle the globe at the equator. But wait, there’s more. The diameter of our solar system is 5.54 x 109 miles which means it would take 2.8 x 1012 of me. I am almost 3 trillion times smaller than our solar system. But wait, there’s more. Once we leave the solar system, distance becomes so great that it is measured in light years, the distance light can travel in 365 days. The speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per second so the length of one light year is 5.9 x 1012 miles or over 1000 times the diameter of our solar system. The next reference point most of us are familiar with is our galaxy the Milky Way. The Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light years or 5.9 x 1017 miles, which means I am 2.9 x 1020 times smaller than our galaxy, or about 3 million trillion times smaller. Okay, let’s go one step further. The best estimates of astronomy scientists is that the physical universe is at least 2.7 x 109 light years or 1.6 x1025 miles in diameter making me 8 x 1026 times smaller than the universe. Or I am 800 trillion trillion times smaller than the universe that an Awesome and Holy God has created and holds together.

So tell me again. Why am I significant?

To be continued….