Realizing Our Amazing Gifts

We humans tend to take our God Given Gifts for granted. A friend of mine recently gave me some booklets with excerpts from the writings of Daniel G. Amen, M.D. The quoted book title is CHANGE YOUR BRAIN—Change Your Life. Dr. Amen is a clinical neuroscientist, psychiatrist and brain enhancement expert.  He has authored 22 books and is the medical director of the world renowned Amen Clinics.  

Like much of Science, Dr. Amen’s writings about personal issues of humans and just how complicated our brains are, can be used to better understand our God given gifts. Our lives are not accidents of nature and as our brains are described by Dr. Amen, we are unique in the universe.  While Dr. Amen practices forms of spirituality that are not acceptable to most Christians, his knowledge of the brain can certainly be used by all to better appreciate our great gift from God.

He has stated the following: “The brain is the most complicated organ in the universe. There is nothing as complex as the human brain. Nothing. It is estimated that we have 100 billion neurons or nerve cells and trillions of supportive brain cells called glial cells. Each neuron is connected to other neurons by up to 40,000 connections between cells. You have more connections in your brain than there are stars in the universe. Also, even though your brain is only about two percent of your body’s weight, it uses twenty-five to thirty percent of the calories you consume. Your brain is the major energy consumer in the body. Of the breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks you had today, almost a third went to feed your brain.” Dr. Amen also states that, “Our brain consumes 20% of the oxygen you breathe and 25% of the blood flow in your body.  

In Dr. Amen’s pamphlet BRAIN HEALTH—Master Questionnaire, he lists some fifty things that impact humans mentally. While few if any of us are impacted by all these conditions, we might all have been impacted occasionally or briefly by them. I don’t have room to list all fifty in this column, but here are a few: “lack attention to detail, are easily distracted, are restless, are negative, feel sad, feel bored, have low self esteem, feel socially isolated, feel upset when things do not go your way, worry, hold grudges, have a short fuse and lastly, wait for something bad to happen.”  That’s thirteen of the list of fifty. Dr. Amen’s work is excellent in helping folks with their brain health.

While I see the value of Dr. Amen’s work, reading some of his writings strengthens my faith in God and His ability to create us children with such complicated parts. The abilities of our brains make us different from all creation. We had to be created like this to be able to fulfill His charge for us to manage His created Planet Earth.

Genesis 1: 26-28 explains it this way,  “ Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

We are special in this world; however, we must realize our God given gifts and use them to understand His creative intent in putting us in charge of what He created. We matter to God. We don’t need to let Him or ourselves down.