A few days ago, my brain was subconsciously flipping through every experiment I've done over the summer, all the results we got, trying to rationalize and justify some of the conclusions we've arrived at for my upcoming presentation. As I was doing so, frustrated, exhausted, and dealing with an pre-headache, I realized something. Researchers, men and women of science, listen up!
I've always treated my research and my faith as two separate entities. It wasn't until a few days ago that I realized the link between the two. God is all-knowing. All knowledge and wisdom comes from Him. As researchers and men and women of science, we are literally at the cutting-edge of technology, boldly daring to understand and discover what the world knows not of, to this point. That's exciting! But being a researcher myself, I know how it's like, repeating experiments, staring at data, wracking your brain trying to figure out what's wrong with your experimental design, why your data's a little funky, why it doesn't seem to be making sense. I've realized that in these moments, we need to remember it is a privelege for our God to share even a fraction of His vast knowledge with mere humans such as us. In those times we do arrive at solid conclusions, discover new things, and get concrete results, it's not because of our own efforts, no. It's because at that point, God has chosen to enlighten us to an aspect of His great knowledge and revealed just another little fraction of information that we didn't previously know. This reminds me of this verse:
"Call unto Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."
--Jeremiah 33:3
It's pretty cool... I've really never thought of it that way until now. As for me, what I've learned is when the data makes no sense, pray about it, and see if God will grant us an insight to His great knowledge that we previously couldn't comprehend. Last week of research at Caltech! The summer's been an amazing experience I'll never forget. I found a wonderful Christian community where I least expected it, and it's been an overall positive experience for me. God bless everyone who's trying to finish up their projects and prepare for the oral presentations, posters, and final papers!
That is a marvelous insight! From a psychological standpoint the vastness of knowledge to be gained about the interior or psyche/soul life is as or more important as learning about the outside world...conducting inner research with as much effort and focus would also be beneficial to humanity, haha
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