We Are 98.8 %The Same

Genesis 10:32 -   These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations; and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.

Genesis 10 is a genealogy of the sons of Noah that repopulated the earth after the flood.  Japheth had 7 sons that spread out over the general area of Europe.  Ham had 10 sons that settled what we now know as Northeast Africa.  Shem had 10 sons that settled Arabia and became the nation that fathered Abraham.

My mind had a really hard time wrapping itself around the fact that these three sons fathered all the people in the world. I guess I should have had the same thought about Adam and Eve…but better late than never …perhaps.  I fell into a search of the ‘google’ …and came across this fact that blew my mind even more. Ninety-eight point eight percent…it numerical form…98.2%...of the human DNA is exactly the same. Only .2 percent of the genetic markers of any human is different.  That .2 percent shows the differences in eye color…hair color….skin tone…and personality.

Theologians say that all these descendants of Noah spread out into 70 nations…which fact monster states have become 196 countries of the world today.  The only difference in any of us is our hair…skin…eye color…personality…which derived mostly from where each group settled around the equator.

Here is the question in my heart this morning.  If only .2 percent of our DNA is different…how has the world become such a culturally split …unforgiving…. segregated place?  I know the answer involves the way satan tricks our hearts into hating and selfishly desiring majority power…but I don’t think I ever realized just how much we are alike....and how powerful satan must be to do so much with the .2 percent of us that is different.

Oh how it hurts my heart to see the world so separated….our minds conceiving the worst in people instead of seeing the good that we can do we all work harder to spread God’s love…the one kind of love that can bind us all together…the one kind of love that can triumph over the power satan has to trick us into hating the .2 percent that looks and sounds different than ourselves.  

Father…thank you for the reminder that I am more the same as everyone else than I am different.  Forgive me for the times that I have seen personality…and culture…and skin tone…and economic status…as reasons to close myself off from others.  Show me how to use your love to overcome the power of satan to trick me into seeing others as different than myself.  Help me to concentrate on the 98.8 percent of me that is exactly like everyone else.  Amen.