How can we improve things?
ASK, SEEK, KNOCK
From preschool to postgraduate level, people keep asking, seeking and knocking to increase their knowledge, insight, experience, skills and efficacy (Matt. 7:7).
God embedded all this potential in his creation, but we must make the effort to explore, find, mine, refine, use and develop them for the well-being of all.
To make or do anything, humans use material and energy from creation. Vehicles are made of metals in the crust of the Earth. Food comes from sunshine, rain and soil. Many medicines are produced from plants. Homes are built with timber from the woods. Bridges and high buildings are constructed with concrete consisting of sand, stones and cement provided by nature. Propulsion, heating and cooling comes from natural sources such as oil, gas, wind, water or sun.
The astonishing advancement of technology in the past three centuries has been spurred by asking questions.
The idea of a machine making multiple identical copies fast had been with humanity for ages (like the brick mould, signet ring and printing press), but this concept really took off in the Industrial Revolution. It was so simple: make a mould, pour mortar, metal, plastics or ceramics in, let it cool or dry, and you have the desired object. Repeat the process and you can make thousands of identical objects.
Then the questions multiplied: How can I improve this machine? How can I eliminate weaknesses? How can I increase speed and quality? How can I improve the ingredients of the stuff I’m moulding? Has my concept wider application?
Some say inventors are “lazy” people looking for easier ways to do more, making more money with less effort — a very productive kind of laziness! A farmer’s wife asked him to shake cream in a container to make butter. He had urgent work to do, so he fastened the cream-can to the wheel of the windmill. As the wind turned the wheel, the cream got churned. When the farmer finished with the livestock, the butter was ready, too.
Windmills pump underground water up into dams to quench the thirst of man and beast around the world. Waterwheels in small streams ground grain, elevated water to higher levels or pumped water from swamps to increase farmable land. These simple inventions, and their modern equivalents, originated with the question: how can I fulfil a need with what I have?
Humanity has come full cycle: we are returning to wind, water and sun power. Machines driven by fossil fuels could do a lot of work fast, but these fuels polluted the air. Nature stored carbon underground and in wood, but humans decided to burn it for fuel, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Ask: How can I help to change this?
Jacob Van Zyl of Lethbridge is a retired counsellor and the author of several faith-based books.