School bus crashes on the first day of school

This headline stopped me when I saw it: “Multiple injuries after school bus carrying over 40 children crashes on 1^st day of school.” I reacted immediately and viscerally as I thought of my grandchildren starting school this week. Then I reminded myself that (a) they don’t ride the bus to school and (b) if this had involved them, I would have known of it long before reading about it online.

But before my mind took over, my heart took me down a very scary path. If you have children or grandchildren in school, yours may have reacted in a similar fashion.

Why is this?

Answers to our question say as much about our culture as they do about our psychology.

Your amygdala and hypothalamus at work

According to Harvard Health, our “fight-or-flight” response is a survival mechanism that enables us to react quickly to life-threatening situations. When we experience a stressful event, the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus, our brain’s “command center.” This communication with the rest of our body through our nervous system gives us the energy to fight or flee.

This emotional reaction happens quickly, enabling a faster response than would be likely if we stopped to reason our way through the situation.

Khiron Clinics reports that the term “fight or flight” was coined by psychologist William James and physiologist Carl Lange in the 1920s as an evolutionary survival mechanism. The article states that this is “an ancient response to physical threat which would have been essential to our prehistoric ancestors as they faced numerous dangers over a short life span.”

Their characterization of this instinct as an evolutionary trait is common in literature discussing the subject. This description makes sense: if you are more attuned to danger than someone else, you are more likely to survive and then to pass on your “fight or flight” genetics to your offspring when a tiger or some other beast attacks.

There is even research identifying such genetic markers: a study found that Homo sapiens display lower expression of a gene called ADRA2C. This lowered expression is thought to correlate with amped up fight-or-flight responses as an adaptation to threats of war.

All that to say, my reaction to the bus accident in the news is evidence of my evolutionary journey to the present. Or so we’re told.

A bicycle and a tricycle in a garage

If you happened to see a tricycle and a bicycle in a neighbor’s garage, you could draw two conflicting assumptions.

One would be that one “evolved” from the other. The bicycle would therefore be a “higher” form of transportation in that it is more usable by a larger population, or the tricycle could be a “higher” form of transportation in that it is more stable. But either way, one came from the other.

Your other assumption would be that the same engineer or engineering produced them both. Each has its particular use, but both are products of a third entity that designed and created them for their intended purposes.

The evidence is the same in both cases: a bicycle and a tricycle in a garage. Your guiding presuppositions will lead you to the interpretation of their existence you choose.

So it is with humans and my reaction to the bus accident. I understand the logic by which this reaction is thought to have evolved genetically. But what if the Creator who designed and produced us wanted us to be able to react quickly to stress and danger? What if he wanted us to be able to survive tiger attacks and other threats?

Would he not then create precisely the same amygdala and hypothalamus in our brains? Would they not be evidence of his marvelous design rather than our chaotic, coincidental evolutionary past?

“The universe was created by the word of God”

Your response to the bicycle and tricycle illustration is likely the product of your life experience. If you have seen a large number of similar physical devices in the world, all produced by humans rather than by each other, you are preconditioned to assume the same of these. If you were an alien from another planet on your first visit to Earth, by contrast, you might be more susceptible to the evolutionary hypothesis.

This discussion relates to far more than bus accidents and bicycle/tricycle origins.

If we see every dimension of reality as the product of an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful Father, we find ourselves at home in this world on a deeply intuitive level. We know that the planet is fallen (Romans 8:22) and that diseases and disasters are very real. But we know that our Lord redeems even these for a greater good and that his fingerprints of grace are visible everywhere we look with the discernment of faith.

We can then look to the skies and say, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). We can look to “the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea,” and know that our Maker made them as well (Psalm 8:8).

We can look in the mirror and say to our Father, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). And we can testify, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

The design of your hand and the hand of God

I was thirty years old when I first became pastor of a large church. I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the opportunity and challenge before me.

One afternoon, I was sitting in our backyard, struggling with my sense of inferiority and inadequacy, when a leaf blew against my leg. I picked it up and felt prompted to study it in detail.

I had never before noticed the intricacy of a leaf’s design, from the stem to the veins to the blade. I tried to remember what I learned in high school biology about the leaf’s photosynthesis process that converts light into energy for the tree while releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. I considered the amazing design of the tree by which these leaves are produced. I considered that no human, not even our most brilliant scientists and botanists, could reproduce what I was holding in my hand.

Then I sensed a voice in my spirit say, “If I can design a leaf, I can design your life.” And I somehow knew that, so long as I trusted my Father, all would be well.

You don’t have to pick up a leaf to have the same experience. 

Take a moment to look at your hand with the same level of attention I gave that leaf. Notice the skin, veins, and evidence of its skeletal structure. There are twenty-seven bones in your hand. Every square inch of it contains about nineteen million cells. Its veins and arteries are part of a system running through your body, estimated to be sixty thousand miles in total length.

Your God made all of that. And what’s more, the hand that measures the universe (Isaiah 40:12) is holding you right now (John 10:28–29).

Why is that fact good news for you today?