The Milky Way is a titanic pinwheel, making up billions of stars. It gives the equivalent light of 10 billion suns. For light to travel from one end of our galaxy to the other, would take 100,000 light years. Let’s get this into perspective. If you packed a large lunch, jumped into your car, and drove at 55 miles an hour, it would take you 12,000,000 years to travel one light year. Traveling to our nearest, neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, it would take 52 million years.

Our galaxy is alive with movement. Planets orbiting stars, gaseous rings rotating and expanding around galactic nucleus. Meteors and comets moving at great speeds. The long arms of the galaxy are in constant flux, turning and changing. The entire Milky Way is effected by density-wave patterns like waves in the ocean. The galaxy is also growing, its mass increasing at an astonishing rate. And to complete this cosmic dance, graced by a breathtaking light show, the whole dance floor is turning. Thankfully for us, it is not a dance of chaos, where billions of heavenly bodies are smashing into each other. Gravity governs the dance, allowing stars, planets and moons to relate coherently to one another. A fitting display for the ballroom of Heaven.

But that’s not all!

Expand the dance floor, the entire universe is rotating, pulsing with movement. The known universe is a home to over 100 billion of these graceful galaxies, some larger, some smaller than our own. If you were to make a fist and point it anywhere toward the sky, it would cover an area of space containing one million galaxies.

How much does the known universe weigh? It is estimated at ten trillion, trillion, trillion trillion tons, fully dressed.

You may ask, How many stars are there in the universe?” Even a scientist in his best, freshly, bleached lab coat would have to humbly proclaim, I don’t know.

The cell could be compared with a galaxy in the universe. As with the seemingly endless varieties of galaxies, so to, cells vary in endless shape and function. There are trillions of cells in your body. They make up the shape, organization, construction and carry out the continual demands of the body’s life processes.

The function of the body has been compared with the inner workings of a car. The mind is sometimes called a human computer. These comparisons are primitive, at best, when compared to the unfathomable workings of the body.

To study the body can be compared to peeling away layer of an onion starting with the digestive system, respiratory system, cardiovascular system, lymphatic system and urinary system. The next layer would consist of the main organs, brain, stomach, lungs and heart. Exploring more deeply there is tissue, made up of cells, organelles, molecules and finally the atom. But, even more complex is how all of this harmoniously performs together, making up you. Every cell dancing in perfect unison, the Conductor, your brain.

Within the brain's deeply, furrowed cortex, secured beneath its bony case, lies the wellspring of memory, dreams, alertness and self-awareness. Neurons humming with activity—networking, processing, acting with lightning speed to interpret the messages from the sense organs. The tongue, alone, has 9,000 taste buds. Each bud is a tiny receptor cell that sends messages to the brain in order to analyze and identify food. The temporal lobe, association cortex, corpus callosum, and the left and right hemisphere behave like players in an orchestra to transform the constant influx of signals into a cohesive interpretation of the inner and outer world.

So far we have discovered 3000 psychoactive chemicals, allowing the brain to react to outside stimulus. More than fifty psychoactive substances are produced by the brain that activates aggression, sedation and memory. The brain can function at a rate of over 100,000 chemical reactions per second. A quantity of information equal to 100 billion bits can be stored in the memory, equal to 500 hundred sets of encyclopedias. The brain has 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connectors for memory alone. Even with today’s high-tech diagnostic tools, most of the brain’s operations remain a great mystery. The brain, as with the rest of the body, is made up of trillions of tiny cells.

The circulatory system is 60,000 miles long. Each blood cell encircles the body up to 300,000 times in a period of 120 days. The lungs contain 300 billion capillaries. For every pound of fat, your body has to supply an extra 200 miles of blood capillaries.

Nerve cells have long threadlike shapes which are capable of transmitting nerve impulses from one region of the body to the other. Clear communication is important for health. Epithelial cells line the inside of the mouth as a protection for the more delicate cells underneath.

A cell consists of two major parts, one inside the other. Both are enveloped in a thin membrane. The cell membrane is a thin, flexible, living material, serving as a gateway, allowing certain chemicals to flow in and go out. How it is able to do this is not understood. The molecules that are found on the inside of the membrane act as enzymes which exhilarate chemical reactions within the cell. In contrast, the molecules which are on the outside of the membrane act as receptor sites and can join with specific chemicals such as hormones.

The Cytoplasm, when viewed through a standard laboratory microscope, could be mistaken for a clear liquid with little specks sprinkled throughout. But when examined more closely through an electron microscope, a whole world is uncovered. Complex structured, filled with networks of membranes, this is where most of the activities of the cell occur. Here the Big Mac, fries and Coke are received and processed.

Through the process of digestion, carbohydrates, fats and proteins are broken down in stages by chemical means until all the large molecules are reduced in size to water-soluble molecules which are small enough to squeeze into the billions of blood capillaries imbedded in the intestinal wall. The bloodstream circulates these molecules until they enter the intercellular fluid which surrounds the cell. The molecules then pass through the cell membrane into the cell.

The cell nucleus can normally be found in the center of the cytoplasm. The nucleus is a happening place. It is filled with RNA and protein. The reproductive process begins in the nucleus. Chromatin which consists of loosely, coiled fibers, tightens and is changed into tiny rod-like chromosomes. The chromosomes are made up of protein and DNA which contain the information for the cell to carry out its life processes.

This is just a taste of the understanding which we have of the cell. The complexity increases tenfold when we begin to examine how cells communicate and work together to make up the miracle of the human body.

Physicists believe that before the Big Bang, our solar system, galaxies, the known universe, and you were able to fit onto the head of a pin. A time came when matter and energy got a little claustrophobic and decided to go out on the town with a big bang! Now, through a series of millions of accidents, we have Order down to the tinniest atom. Yet a rotating universe creates a major problem for the Big Bangers. An explosion ought to have resulted in all matter, moving in a straight, outward direction, not rotation.

It is not surprising that physicists have discovered that the origin of the universe was birthed from one, concentrated time and place. But chaos does not beget order, just as a cow does not give birth to a horse. The laws of nature dictates that life begets life, according to its kind.

A painting has design because it had a Designer. The universe has order because it has an Orderer.

From the imagination of God came Living Words that had creative power. The Author of Order gave birth to an infinitely complex order. It was as if He wanted to insure that we could not get it wrong. As we increased in knowledge, there could be only one answer to the question, Where did we come from?

You may ask why we are discussing the universe in a book about health? Sickness, sin and mental illness are all forms of disorder. And most of the disorders with which we struggle are self-inflicted. God is not the Author of disorder. He wants to set you free, physically and spiritually.

Christians can become uncomfortable with the whole idea of holistic eating as it has been glorified without honoring God. Many groups who have embraced health and nutrition have presented it in a twisted and unbalanced way. But we will not fall prey to worshipping the gift instead of the Giver.

The things which are going to learn about health and nutrition are vitally important in our relationship with our Father. We do not achieve some level of spirituality through diet, but, if we are obedient and disciplined in how we eat, we will experience His blessings in our health, which is a testimony of the love of God to a dying world.

Jesus, when healing, often said, Your faith has made you well. Yet, what is exalted is not faith but God. All through the scriptures there are grand displays of God's power, but we do not worship His power. We worship Him. The source of health is not food, but God who has made the body and food. To Him we give thanks.

There is a majesty and a glory in what God has made. His character and personality can be seen. As we continue in our study on nutrition, you are going to be amazed at the healing, regenerative qualities which God has provided in food.

This book was not written with the intention of you becoming a health fanatic, but to educate us in eating in a way that brings honor to God. He created food to be a blessing, not a curse, to heal, not to destroy, to bring health, not sickness. What father wants to see his children sick, diseased and lacking a zeal for life?

The food that was created for our blessing was not made haphazardly. All of the wonders that are being discovered today in the fields of health should cause the church to sit up and take notice. It is a love letter as true and clear as the Word. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Rom 1: 20).