Be honest with me. Is it easy for you to look at another person and think, “He is really not as smart as I am.” Or maybe you think that a person of the opposite sex or another ethnic group is inferior to you. When your spouse needs an extra explanation just to understand something simple, what do you think?

Each of us owns a jewel far more valuable than any displayed in the window of any jewelry store in Cochabamba, LaPaz or Santa Cruz. It’s a 1 ½ kilo gray blob resembling a rotting cauliflower. It looks the same regardless of the color of our skin, whether we’re male or female and if we’re 20 years old or 80.

This jewel is the most incredible creation in God’s universe. It’s a fabulous, living supercomputer with unfathomable circuitry and unimaginable complexity. It is the human brain – a collection of billions of neurons, each as complex as a small computer. Imagine having 100 billion computers inside your skull! Even a mentally handicapped person has a brain much more complex that the most complex computer yet created.

Each of these neurons consists of a central nerve-cell core attached to a long tail and several thousand wispy dendrites. These dendrites reach out to make contact with other dendrites, and the number of connection points between these dendrites is perhaps one quadrillion in every human brain. According to one writer, the number of connections within one human brain rivals the number of stars and galaxies in the entire universe.

That’s not all! Each of these connection points is itself a marvel of complexity. The dendrites don’t actually touch each other, but they efficiently and rapidly pass messages to each other through the form of electrical and chemical impulses in a series of processes that takes less than one-thousandth of a second. One scientist said, “All of this is so complex that the brain cannot even begin to comprehend its own complexity.” What a jewel!

With each one of us housing this kind of unbelievable jewel, how can we even begin to think we’re better than any other person? How can we begin to think that any other person is not an absolutely amazing creation? What are you and I doing to encourage and honor the gifts God has given us in our spouses and children? How can we not honor our parents and grandparents? This week, let’s marvel at the people that make our families happy.

None of us are perfect as individuals – nor are our marriages perfect.  As we work together to maintain our love and a strong marriage, our homes will be a good environment for growing and happy children.