SOLID START
Focusing on life from God's perspective.
SOLID START
Designed With Purpose
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This week on Solid Start, Greg and Brian dive into the incredible reality of design and purpose. From the buildings we enter to the technology we use, everything around us was created with intention by a designer. But beyond human creativity, they explore the truth that God is the ultimate Designer.
Nothing in creation is accidental—including you. God designed each of us with purpose, value, and meaning. Join Greg and Brian as they discuss how recognizing God’s design in the world around us can deepen our faith and help us better understand the purpose He has for our lives.
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Solid Start, a podcast designed to get your week off to a solid start by focusing on life from God's perspective. I'm Greg Reed, Life Coach at Merrill Bros, and we're coming, the podcast is coming to you from World Headquarters in Kokomo, Indiana. And today, thankfully, I'm joined once again by my ever-popular co-host Brian Hertzog back for the second week in a row. Brian, it's the summer miracle. You're back.
SPEAKER_00Won't be uh soon. I'll be heading out here shortly. It's short-lived. It's short-lived. Yeah, we have uh Kennewick open house uh this week. Yes, that's right. A lot of team members flying to Washington and getting ready for that amazing grand opening. Great open house. Yes, open house. Open house. Yes.
SPEAKER_01We hope all of you were able to enjoy a uh great holiday weekend, maybe an extra day. I I talked to a guy today and I said, Hey, what do you have going on for uh the holiday weekend? He said, We don't we don't celebrate holidays. We're not religious. I'm thinking, okay. I didn't I didn't know it was a religious, it's not like you know, hey, how are you gonna celebrate the birth of Christ? But he was, I guess I said, Well, it's this is really more about people that we remember who gave their lives in order that we might have a free country. Yeah. And so it was not really good talking to you, but it was great. It was a great conversation. Hey, let's do vacation together sometime in the future. So, well, that's great. Well, I hope you had a great weekend as well, and that you got to uh relax a little bit. Um, so are you doing sport are you doing soccer right now or what else is going on?
SPEAKER_00Uh school is ending, so we're getting ready to start uh summer training. Okay. So getting ready to get after it pretty quickly here.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And that's in anticipation of then for the the fall. The fall season. Okay.
SPEAKER_00With with a lot of sports, you cannot just show up first day of practice and expect to play or it's actually really bad for you and bad for the athletes if they are not in shape, ready to go at the start of our season. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00We use the summer to run and do all the fun stuff.
SPEAKER_01So that was the great thing about having uh tennis in the fall in high school is that we got to play all summer. Yeah. And so we were ready to go. So we'd played, you know, down at the local park all summer. And so by the time we hit the courts in the fall and back in school, we'd already been playing all summer, so we were uh tanned and muscular and ready to rock and roll. Sure thing, Greg. Hey, they can't see that on the podcast, so we're all good. We're all good. Hey, I was thinking in terms of uh uh something exciting that happened recently, and I don't know if you got to see any of the footage of the uh the NASA uh Artemis II. Oh, yeah. That uh what a 10-day flight, I think, with uh four astronauts around the moon and safely back to Earth. And that, you know, when they finally land in the ocean, it's like I can't imagine the families and thinking that they're up there and you know, thout tens of thousands of miles away, and you think that's you know, that's my husband, or that's my wife, you know, it's just it's hard to imagine that, and I think it was the first four-person crew uh to on a mission in more than 50 years. So it'd been a long time since we'd had, you know, people out there uh and and I just thought about the mission requiring incredible precision. There was an exact launch timing, there's navigation, there's life support, there's communication, there are engineering systems that must work together flawlessly. I don't my guess is no one watched Artemis II and thought, well, that mission just happened by accident. Yeah. I don't think anybody did that. Absolutely not. So when we see you know extraordinary coordination and purpose, we instinctively assume that there's intelligence and there's a design. And so that's kind of where we are in our series. Um, typically on uh Mondays, and now this week on Tuesday, uh, we ask a foundational question last week. Are we accidents or are we designed? And so this week we want to move from meaning to some evidence. And so that's where this Artemis II comes in, that all of the timing, all the mathematics mattered, the engineering mattered, the structure mattered. I don't think anybody watched that and said, wow, that was, I think that was an accident. That that just it just got up there somehow. So that's why this uh this topic is, I think, so important as we think about how God has shaped us. We want to say that there's something behind that shaping. Brian, as you think about what you do at work, is there an example of something from your work that you think, hey, you would look at that and think, well, of course that was designed. Of course, it couldn't have come together by accident. What would that be?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, with with the trade shows. Yes. Yeah. We don't just show up and it automatically appears.
SPEAKER_01That would be nice sometimes, right?
SPEAKER_00There is a lot of work that was involved in getting uh the sets designed or the the videos produced, all of the printouts, all of the little hand out. There's a lot of work that goes in goes into getting us ready for those shows.
SPEAKER_01You know, I th that's that's a great illustration because it's it doesn't happen by accident. No. Uh you guys have to spend a lot. What do you think? How long does it take you to set up for a big trade show? Like how much time are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00For the day of, it could take um from around eight to three or eight to four, but that's just a portion of the work that goes into it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because you have to get ready, all that stuff. I see you out there in our main shop getting all that stuff have to be boxed up, has to be sent out, has to be timed properly, it has to make sure that it gets there and it's not in pieces.
SPEAKER_00No, we we we pray as it leaves our facility. I hope it's there when I get to Kansas City.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Okay, so that's a great uh you know, and I think the universe then contains levels of order and precision that are far beyond setting up for a trade show. I think it was Bill Gates who said DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any computer software ever created. And so that DNA is the software in a sense of our lives. And so this, you know, sometimes I think Christians get all bent out of shape and fearful of science. And faith and science, they're not enemies, they're partners. Um science really answers how things work, but faith answers why they work. We want to talk about in this series does explaining processes fully explain origin and order and meaning, or does the existence of order point to something beyond the systems? I think Romans 1, verse 20, Brian, really reveals something about the source.
SPEAKER_00It says, For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So the Apostle Paul in that passage is telling us that design leaves fingerprints. In other words, it's you know, you look up into the heavens, you think, how did that we're gonna be flying uh um soon to a graduation in Atlanta, Georgia. And it's going to be remarkable. I think once we get up there, every time we go through those clouds and get above them, it's like, how did all that happen? Like, how did all that get in place? And so I think that the best explanation is there has to be some kind of intelligence behind all of that. And so that's uh that's where we're going to be heading uh for the next few weeks, is we're gonna look at intelligence and we're gonna talk about a designer and to think, what is that designer? What did he have in mind, and what kind of design is there that gives us the evidence that says, wow, this is really on purpose. We're talking about uh our shape. Is it accident or design? And we believe that God has an incredible design. So so that's where we're headed in the uh in the weeks to come. So we're excited about uh looking at the evidence and saying, God, tell us where the evidence leads, so that people that are listening to this podcast, in case you're saying, I'm I'm not even really sure about what evidence you're talking about and what conclusion that might lead me to. So we're going to do our best job possible of presenting you with evidence so that uh you get to make your own decision based on the evidence.
SPEAKER_00And throughout all of this, if if you have questions or if you have thoughts and you want to share those with us, just reach out to us. Go to Merrillbrose.com, click on the prayer tab at the top of the page, uh, and fill out that little contact form. Yes and we will we will reach out to you.
SPEAKER_01That'd be great. I'd love to have some conversations uh with people because they're just so much the evidence is overwhelming. And as Paul, as you just read, uh the heavens declare the glory of God. So I think it'd be great uh today before we sign off the broadcast to uh to pray for some things that are happening around the company. Um obviously the Kennewick Open House is approaching like a bullet, and that's going to be a uh that's gonna be a great event. I think you and some of our uh marketing team are headed out there, and so that's going to be uh that'll be exciting. And we have a uh a flock, a gaggle, a whole bunch of new interns. Yes. And that's exciting. I had lunch with two of them this uh just a couple of days ago, and being able to get acquainted with them, these guys are 20 and talking about stuff that I don't even understand. And so it's exciting to think about. They get exposed some to some amazing people and to uh an amazing company. So I'm excited about that. And farming is in full swing, right? All over the country. Um most people probably have their stuff planted. You know, the whole thing about knee high by the 4th of July, it's usually way over my head by the 4th of July. So that uh that kind of language is really a thing of the past, I think. So well, let's uh let's pray about that and uh give God thanks for uh all that He's created and all that He's made possible in order that we have more evidence than we could even imagine for looking at a creator and saying thank you.
SPEAKER_00Father, we thank you for bringing the interns to us here at Merrill Brothers. It's just incredible to see such young talent with just this desire to learn and be a part of something special here and just being able to talk to them and see their eyes just light up when we show them some of the things that we're doing here. Uh it's really exciting. And so thank you for each one of them. And I pray uh that we here at Merrill Brothers would uh would just do our best um to be good Christ-like examples for each one of them. Uh, I pray that their time here uh God is is well spent and that uh they will leave here with just an incredible amount of knowledge of uh not only what we do here at Merrill Brothers, but who you are and how much you love them. God, I also want to uh pray for our farmers. Uh we do a lot of farming uh here at Merrill Merrill Brothers, and so we're just praying for them. Pray God that the weather would cooperate and we can get in the fields and get everything planted. Uh just pray for a good season. Um some years it's tough, and some years we have a plentiful harvest, and so we're just praying for that again, that we would uh come this fall, that we our crops would just flourish and um that we would have a great harvest and just keep our farmers safe as they're working around their equipment, they're on the the roads. Pray God that you would just watch over them, keep them safe, and uh we're so thankful for each one of our farmers.
SPEAKER_01Eternal God, thank you uh for the reminder, just as Brian was praying about what's going on in Kennewick and uh a few years back. That was just a conversation. And then those became drawings, and then those became uh buildings, and now we're having an open house within 24 hours, and it's just hard to imagine that all of that has come together uh by design. And so we're just uh uh thanking you that uh that is another evidence of the fact that there is great design in this world, and that points to a designer. And so we're grateful for the opportunity we have to look around us and see all that you've done uh to make this uh a place where we get to inhabit and that it's beautiful, it's it provides everything we need for life and godliness. And so just give you thanks for uh this weekend that you've given to us, for the opportunity to be refreshed, and now for a brand new week. And so we look forward to uh hearing from you even more as we see all around us uh the evidence for design that comes from an incredible loving designer. And so it's in Jesus' name that we give you thanks. Amen. Amen. Brian, I was thinking this week our practice assignment. I I would love for you that are listening to this podcast just to be looking around all week and say, where is it that I see design? And just be reminded each day that uh that design points to a designer. Uh so Brian, remind them again of uh if they want to get in touch with us, how to do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Merrowbros.com, prayer tab at the top of the page. Okay. Uh just fill out that contact form and we'd love to hear from you.
SPEAKER_01Great. Well, hey, have a safe trip to uh Kennewick, and we look forward to uh uh hearing big news from what happens out there with uh hundreds of people coming to see that facility showcased and what God might want to do with continuing to make projects like that a reality. So thanks for the part that you and the marketing team are doing, and everybody else that's that will be on the road and in the air for uh Kennewick, Washington. So have a have a fabulous week. Talk to you later.