THE HUMAN SEGWAY

Photo by Alejandro Luengo on Unsplash.

I was following my twelve – year old grandnephew on a mountain trail and was amazed at how easily he could walk over this varied terrain.  I wondered if he thought about what an incredibly complex miracle walking is.  I called him a human Segway. 

A Segway is a self – balancing personal transporter.  You’ve seen the police use them for crowd control.  They transport us from point A to point B like our body does, except they have wheels instead of legs, a motor instead of muscles, a collection of micro – processors instead of a brain, and a set of tilt sensors instead of an inner-ear balancing system.  They are quite an invention, but pale in comparison to the human body which can walk, run, jump and move over extremely varied terrain and surfaces. 

                                                                                                                                                                                              Scientists are still trying to figure out how human beings accomplish the routine, taken for granted miracle we call walking, let alone running.  Walking is a specific interaction between the ankle, knee, muscles and tendons.  Coordinated signals from the brain, i.e. mainly the motor cortex and the cerebellum make walking possible. The vestibular system, the inner ear balance mechanism works with the visual system, the eyes and sends signals to the brain to help us maintain awareness of our position when walking or running.  

Think about this!  The average, moderately active person walks 7,500 steps a day!  If that average person lives to be 80 years old, he or she would have walked 216,262,500 steps or 5 times around the world!   How can your body do that?  Brain Post.

Simply walking is indeed miraculous, but 5 times around the world?  

AND check this out!!!  In 1998, seventy-year-old John Halvorson, former pastor of Great Lakes Church in Duluth Minnesota, felt led by the Holy Spirit to ‘Prayer Walk’ across America.  The purpose of his walking was to pray for America and inspire others to ‘walk with God’.

He first walked from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, 2239.5 miles.  The next year, he walked from Oregon to Delaware, 2730 miles.  Then he walked from Los Angeles to New York, a distance of 2789.8 miles!  His last walk was a diagonal across America from Miami to Seattle, that’s 3600 miles!  He walked a total of 11,359.3 miles walking 16 miles a day!

EXTRAORDINARY!  

How could his feet, joints, muscles and tendons enable him to walk so far especially at his age?  Because God called him to walk and whomever God guides, He provides.  And, ‘with God nothing will be impossible.’  Luke 1:37. 

Does thinking about walking make you wonder who made it possible?  Does it make you grateful? 

Colossians 1:16 tells us that it was Jesus who made walking possible.  ‘Through Him (Jesus) all things were made……’  

Will you give Him thanks? Give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds to mankind.  Psalm 107:8

One of these deeds was giving human beings this walking miracle!!!

Take nothing for granted and think about everything and as Albert Einstein said, “there are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle”.   

 Live that way!!!!