Creating a Helper

How cool would it be to have your own robot?

As someone who studied engineering, albeit a different field, my eye is often drawn to articles on robotic innovations. One such news caught my attention recently. However, unlike most occasions, it wasn’t the engineering skill and ingenuity of design that interests me. You see it wasn’t what was being done that was the most intriguing part of this particular story, but rather who was doing it.

Was it a multi-national engineering firm? A world-renowned university research department? No, the might and resources of Google are now being utilised to develop a robot to perform as-yet-unspecified tasks for them. There is unconfirmed speculation that this could be linked to their driver-less car initiative in order to fully automate deliveries to customers’ doors. So rather than employing delivery drivers, they would have robotic helpers to do the ground work for them. Brilliant! Unless you’re a delivery driver, of course.

But as impressive as this development may be, we really ought to put it into context. Many years of hard work and financial resources have been pumped in to arrive at where we are today in robotic science. And even with the hefty resources provided by Google, the best we are currently hoping for is an automated delivery driver—so much for man-made helpers.

Now compare that to what God was able to do when He decided that a helper was required:

And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make a helper comparable to him.” … And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
—Genesis 2:18, 21-22 (NKJV)

The story of creation is so well known to us that we may not always appreciate just how incredible it was.

Our human creativity pales into insignificance when seen in the light of our Creator God’s awesome power. Whereas all the time and resources we have expended have led us to the possibility of robotic helpers for certain tasks (which still have severe and significant limitations), God was able to create a woman—beautiful, intelligent and highly complex. And, most amazingly of all, alive!

We are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), and so it is through Him that we are able to design and invent things. But we are still only an image, a reflection of His true creative power. So as we applaud the intelligence of inventors in doing wonderful things such as building robots, how much more should we appreciate and worship God for all He has done?

Written By Alan Humphrey for YMI