I have been to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and our local Pechanga Resort Casino, but have never considered the liklihood of my winning big to be motivation enough for me to actually play the odds at any machine or table. I’m a square, I guess, I’ve never even purchased a lottery ticket either. Not like my brother-in-law who is a VIP winner or my sister who generally does pretty good. Guess it’s not in my DNA.
And on that topic of DNA, have you ever seriously considered the actual odds of you being born? Let’s talk about odds.
What are the odds of you being struck dead by a falling coconut? Consider – that hard ole shell of a fruit is about 3 pounds, and falling from say a 35 foot tree. That means it will reach a speed of 49 mph in it’s descent. When it hits you, it is carrying a metric ton of force – that means you will die on the spot. They do kill 150 people worldwide in a year according to a 2002 study.
The odds: 1 in 250 million
How ’bout your odds of finding a 4 leaf clover, or even that rare 5 leaf clover?
The odds: 4 leaf = 1 in 10,000; 5 leaf = 1 in 1,000,000
What are the odds of you being struck by lightening?
Odds: 1 in 500,000
All of these demonstrate crazy odds of happening and yet they happen. Yes, rarely, but they do happen and we have the statistics (and photos) to support them.
Well, back to that DNA related question we asked earlier.
What are the odds of you being born?
Here are the things that must be considered in order to calculate those odds.
- The probability of your parents meeting – we could spend time here with hypotheticals, but we know our own parents’ stories. So I will just give you the numbers according to the mathematicians. The odds : 1 in 20,000
- Then, the chances that they developed some type of relationship, enough for offspring to result. The odds: 1 in 2,000
- Next, 1 egg and 1 sperm getting together. A woman possesses 100,000 viable eggs and a man 12 trillion sperm. Considering only childbearing years that makes The odds: 1 in 400 quadtrillion
- But we are not done yet. All of your ancestors had to live long enough to reproduce through the generations. That means, accroding to scientists through 150,000 generations!
- Each of your ancestors had to be exactly who they were (through the exact same odds making gauntlet) in order to provide the DNA for you to be you. The right sperm and egg meeting for 150,000 generations of reproduction – that means one in 400 quadtrillion times 150,000 generations. The odds: 10 with 2,640,000 zeros!
Now, my precious reader, the odds of all of those steps happening, and you being born are
The odds: 1 in 400 trillion.
Dr. Ali Binazir describes it this way:
“Imagine a city of 2.5 million people (San Diego for example) getting together and each of them rolling a trillion sided dice, and all rolling the same, exact number – say 555,343,279,001!”
Dr. Ali Binzazir – Huffpost.com
Talk about the odds! Whaaaat? How could that be even fathonable?!
Let’s bring it back to you, now. The odds of you being born are what we are talking about. You.
Talk about overcoming the odds. Talk about destiny. Talk about purpose. Talk about value.
You were not an accident. You were an on purpose. Now be encouraged to find and live out that purpose.
You’ve already overcome the worst odds.
Cheers to you,
Debbie
Under Debra’s Palm 
With “crazy” odds like these everyone is a “Spiritual Jackpot”! I’m a Jackpot, you’re a Jackpot, all of God’s children are Jackpot’s. That should be enough to make your eyes roll around in your head like a slot machine.
Psalms 139:14 – “I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”