...God, who makes things grow.

If you follow the Nobel Prize, you'll know that today the award was given to Robert G. Edwards for the development of in vitro fertilization (known as IVF). The term in vitro means performed in a test tube, and by allowing egg and sperm to meet in the test tube, it's been possible for many couples to have children who otherwise wouldn't be able to due to infertility or complications with age. For these people, IVF has undoubtedly been a blessing. IVF has also led to other interesting situations, such as the infamous "Octomom," who managed to have octuplets by IVF and subsequently attracted a lot of media attention and general condemnation for bringing eight children into the world without a father and without any stable support system. In addition, IVF leads to the destruction of many, many human embryos which are created in the test tube but are unable to find a womb to call home.

But this post is not about the merits and/or evils of IVF. Rather, it is about a few of the comments I read on the Nobel Prize website. In particular, there were more than a few people who commented along the lines of: "Thank you for our daughter!" This made me stop and think for a second because I was like, "this seems odd...to be thanking a human being for the existence of another human being." And then I thought back to my devotion this morning in 1 Corinthians 3 (also our text for Bible study this week), and I realized why. You see, the Corinthians had been divided in their loyalty to human teachers, with some following Paul, who had planted the Corinthian church, and others following Apollos, who had come afterward to help solidify and edify the church. But Paul condemns these divisions and says, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." (v. 6)

As humans we can only do so much. We receive the seed from the hand of God and we plant it. We receive the water from the hand of God which we then use to water the seed. But what can we do then? Well, we just have to wait and hope that the seed grows, because we can't make it grow. As Paul goes on to say, "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow."

This is true with regard to the spiritual lives within us, but it is also just as true to our physical lives. Whether you are conceived the traditional way or in vitro, the fact remains that God alone is responsible for your being alive today, or at any point in time. A human may have combined egg and sperm in a test tube, and a human may have planted the resulting embryo in a uterus to grow, but only because God willed it to be so and set out boundaries for which those processes might be possible in the first place.

So whether or not you agree with the merits, political/social/economical/scientific/spiritual, of this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine, I'm going to finish my thoughts with one simple phrase:

To God alone be the glory.