It’s probably one of the most frequent expressions uttered at a funeral. “If there’s anything I can do…” It is intended to offer some degree of comfort and support to someone who has lost a loved one to death. However well-intentioned it is, it is usually a futile effort. Chances are that the person this is offered to is lost in a sea of emotions and in no position to even consider or even appreciate such an offer.

It is a time when we offer our love in a sincere effort to fill the void of the love lost. It is a time when we struggle to find some way to ease the burden of someone’s grief. In that moment of crisis, we fumble into our emotional toolkit and apply the very logic that we have so often used to deny or doubt faith. Only now, ironically, we find ourselves using that logic to offer messages of hope and support. At a time when it seems that logic has no value, we instinctively fall back on logical expressions of comfort – “She’s in a better place now” – “At last he’s no longer in pain” – “She’s reunited with her husband now.”

We probably don’t even realize that we are submitting messages of faith.

If we reflect on it, we might realize that grief is the direct result of lost love, and faith is the only sure way to  heal the wounds of loss. The only way to avoid any possibility of experiencing grief is to reject or avoid love. When we consider how important love is to our life we begin to accept that such an attitude is unrealistic. Somehow, we instinctively understand that grief and love are two sides of the same coin.

In other words, some degree of grief is inevitable. It is one of the prices we pay for the privilege of living a human life. It is the price we eventually pay for having the experience of love. The extent of our grief is in direct proportion to the degree of love for the deceased individual. Certainly, the death of a parent, child, or spouse will result in a more intense and prolonged period of grief than a close friend, but it is still based on affection and closeness.

It is a frustrating and stressful moment when we want to shoulder some of the burden, yet we are essentially handicapped. There is little we can do, despite our sincere offer.

All we can do is offer our love as a fractional substitute for the love lost and reinforce or promote faith as a means of reassuring those who mourn that their loved one has merely returned to the source of all existence where they wait to be reunited.

Perhaps it is in that moment that we have the chance to recognize that love is the most powerful element in our existence, and sharing that love, sharing that faith, is the greatest gift we can offer to those who mourn.

Perhaps no other scientific theory is as debated as the concept of evolution. This, despite the fact that the principles of evolution are evident and ongoing, even today. We see life forms adjust and adapt to their environment on a regular basis. Fossil records support the concept. Differences in life forms from one area to the next or from one climate to another support the idea that those life forms adjust and adapt.

But what about the beginning of life as described in the book of Genisis?

The book of Genisis is not without its critics. While the timeline of the development of life on earth is fairly accurate by today’s understanding, it does seem a bit too simplistic. It does leave out some of the most critical details. But so too does the scientific version of the beginnings of life on earth.

While science can make some pretty educated guesses on the process of earth’s development, when it comes to the emergence of living things, it omits a very crucial factor.

How does a chemical soup transform into a living thing?

Science can speculate on how water, gases and certain chemical elements could have arrived on earth during a very long period as the earth formed, but might be at a loss to explain the process that transforms those inert elements into a new combination that is capable of replicating itself and spreading over the surface of the planet.

Perhaps the early earth had only one landmass that gradually broke apart and created the different continents. That would certainly explain how life forms came to be distributed across the surface of the earth. Then perhaps evolution did occur and caused the ultimate differences in life forms from one area to the next.

But there are more twists to the story.

Genisis also records that plant life preceded animal life. another area of agreement with science. It also states that the first animal life forms were fish in the seas, followed by birds and land animals. Score another win for science.

But somewhere in this mix of theories and speculation is a big gap. A very big gap.

Even if we accept that plant life somehow came into being and instantly became capable of self-replication, there is another enormous gap between that plant life and animal life that was capable of self-awareness and the ability to react to its environment.

Even if we accept the idea that humans were the product of an evolutionary process that stretches back to the first fish in the sea, the leap between a plant rooted in the soil and the emergence of any animal life requires us to accept a pretty big lapse in logic.

The bottom line is that the transformation of that chemical soup of earth’s early history into the simplest life forms  requires a spark of creation that can only be explained by intelligent and incredibly complex design that is best described in these few words … “In the beginning, God created…”

There’s no question that humanity struggles to believe and understand the concept of a creator or supreme being. Even those of us who express a belief in God have trouble grasping the totality of that concept.

In the past, humanity’s belief in the Almighty was pervasive. So what happened?

What happened can largely be attributed to the advances in science and human understanding of the mechanics of the world we live in. Many of the miraculous elements of more primitive human experience are now understood as part of the complex but natural world.

We understand the mechanics of the weather systems that produce tornadoes and hurricanes. We understand earthquakes and volcanoes. We understand blizzards and floods. We understand chemistry and genetics. We understand the forces that cause the planets to orbit the sun.

We understand many of these things – to a degree.

As much as we have progressed in our understanding, there is a limit. Beyond a certain point, our vision is blurred. And it is in that recognition of our limitations that we are able to appreciate that there is much more to our existence than we are capable of grasping.

With every stage of our advancement in science, there seems to be another layer beyond which we are unable to continue. The view beyond that point is unclear.

Perhaps we are designed that way. Perhaps those limitations are an intentional design that provides humanity the incentive to strive and grow. In short, perhaps we are created with a built-in yearning to understand our existence and all that surrounds us. Those layers that block our view are just what we need to drive us toward greater understanding.

With that greater understanding comes the realization that there is a force, an energy, an existence beyond our ability to comprehend, and it is that entity we call God.

There is no doubt that our vision has limitations. Whether it is the wavelengths of light our eyes cannot detect, the sound frequencies our ears cannot hear, or the various types of radiation we cannot feel, we know we need to expand our reach to fully understand our existence.

Perhaps the clearest clue to our limitations lies within our most practical tool – mathematics. It is the tool we use most often in our exploration of science. It is also the tool that provides our greatest frustration.

God, it is said, has no beginning and no end – much like a circle/ The mathematical element of pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter of that circle. Mathematicians and scientists have labored for centuries to determine the ultimate value of pi – to no avail. Currently, pi has been calculated out to more than 62 trillion decimals, with no end in sight.

Perhaps we need to accept the example of pi as the evidence that humanity will never fully understand our existence based on science alone.

Is there an end to the pi ratio? Is there a final end point of understanding all that exists?

God only knows.

It’s a common lyric heard in churches across the globe.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”

It is an expression of joy and love for a Creator we credit with delivering all the good we experience in life. It is an expression of gratitude.

But, what about those times when life is dealing us those troubling moments. What about when we experience the death of a loved one or a divorce or a job loss. What about when there isn’t enough food in the house to feed our children, or when the car is repossessed because we can’t make the payments.

What about those times? Do we still praise God when it seems He is letting us down? Does God need our praise? Does He have an insatiable ego or derive His power from our praise?

Why should we praise God?

Like many of the subtleties of our search for understanding faith, the concept of praise has a deeper, richer meaning than we ordinarily attribute to it. If we were to reflect upon it, we would probably recognize that anyone we have praised in the past has been a recipient of a feeling of love. We might not be quick to put such a label on it, but if we really think it through, we would recognize that this emotion is attached to our praise.

When we view the link between praise and love in light of other evidence, the value of praise of God becomes clearer. Testimony of those who have experienced a near-death experience (NDE) commonly describes their brief encounter with the spirit world as “unconditional love.”

Therein lies the answer we seek. The Bible contains the phrase “God is love.” (1 John 4:16). By praising God, we are tapping into the ultimate power of the universe. We are strengthening our bond with the Creator by engaging in the practice that drives all of creation.

Even with this understanding, we still need to confront our question about praising God when things aren’t going so well for us. How do we justify that?

Once again, we need to visit the reports of those who seem to have had some exposure to existence after death. Whether it be those who have had NDE, or the rare medium who seems capable of relaying messages from beyond, the prevailing understanding is that earthly experience for a spirit being is something like a learning process. While in human form, we all enjoy the experience of being human, along with all that such an adventure has to offer. While some human experiences can be unpleasant, they all contribute to the growth of the ultimate spirit-being, until death frees us from the bonds of the human form.

Our human experiences are ultimately inconsequential, except for the valuable lessons that contribute to the growth of that spirit being inside each of us. With that in mind, we can embrace that phrase – “praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”

Chief among those blessings is the gift of being human.

Ultimately, we recognize that God doesn’t require our praise, as much as we require that effort to connect us to the universal source of that powerful energy – love.