The scientist Ali Binazir wrote a paper explaining the probability that you exist. It turns out that when taking into account the astonishing number of possibilities of parents meeting, grandparents meeting before them, and so on going back generations, and then adding the vast number of sperm and ova in possible combinations over decades of the marital act in all those generations, the odds of me existing just as I do are about 1 in 102,685,000. That’s a number so huge it hurts to think about it.

For example, the probability of your father meeting your mother is 1 in 20,000. The chances of them talking to one another is 1 in 10. The chances of that turning into another meeting is about 1 in 10. The chances of that turning into a long-term relationship is about 1 in 10. The chances of that lasting long enough to result in offspring is 1 in 2. So, the combined probability is already only about 1 in 40 million.

Now let’s get down to some of the biological details: each sperm and each egg is genetically unique because of the process of meiosis; you are the result of the fusion of one particular egg with one particular sperm. So, the probability of that one sperm with half your name on it fertilizing that one egg with the other half of your name on it is 1 in (100,000) (4 x 1012) = 1 in 4 x 1017, or 1 in 400 quadrillion.

Getting complicated! You bet! But the probability just keeps getting more unlikely. You are highly improbable!

But, according to the Bible, you are not here by chance. God created and knit you together in your mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13-16). You’re not just one in a million, you’re one in a 102,685,000.