… what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. [20] For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 1:19-20 NIV

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Romans 1:20 tells us that creation itself is enough to reveal God. God built the world not just to exist, but to explain. He wants to be known and discovered through every aspect of our lives—through nature, science, and the world as well as through our relationships, our emotions, and our souls. Every molecule in existence makes God audible, reachable, and knowable. Every biological system is a clue to who God is. 

When we move through life with this understanding, we will always be in God’s classroom. We will find opportunities for spiritual discovery in places that some might think unlikely, such as the one I found while reading the fantasy book series His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. A young girl named Lyra is at the center of this story, and her conversations with other characters reveal her struggle to understand the spiritual forces at work in the world.

“Quick now, child,” he said quietly. “The powers of this world are very strong. Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.”

Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (Book One)

Like Lyra, I’ve discovered there is much I don’t know about the powers of this world. I, too, am often naïve about the fierce tides at work within men and women.

What I do know is that this world is both physical and spiritual, so understanding it and the God who made it requires a commitment to understanding at least the rudimentary foundations of science and spirituality. 

Pullman pulls on this string when he describes Lyra’s need to navigate the perceived conflict between faith and science:

“But…” Lyra struggled to find the words she wanted: “but it en’t true, is it? Not true like chemistry or engineering, not that kind of true? There wasn’t really an Adam and Eve?”

Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (Book One)

Lyra is not alone in her struggle to reconcile the seemingly disparate principles of faith and science. I have felt caught in the tension between the two, and I’m sure that many other readers have too. Continuing their conversation, Lord Asriel responds to Lyra’s confusion by clarifying that this tension between faith and science is not an argument to be solved, but an idea to be explored:

“…think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number, like the square root of minus one: you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn’t be imagined without it.”

Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (Book One)

As we consider this potential conflict between faith and science, we must resist the temptation to engage in argument. As always with The Chemistry Lab, my proposal is that we approach this topic with curiosity and exploration instead. 

Pullman may not have intended his words for the reason I use them, but I believe his writing invites us to explore not merely faith and science, but the one word which, in my view, combines them both: spirituality.

“Incidentally, the Bible gave us the name Dust as well. At first they were called Rusakov Particles, but soon someone pointed out a curious verse toward the end of the Third Chapter of Genesis, where God’s cursing Adam for eating the fruit.” He opened the Bible again and pointed it out to Lyra. She read: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return….” 

Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (Book One)

Pullman uses the term “Dust” in his novel to describe the physical particles that form a person’s consciousness, highlighting the connection between science and faith, between the physical and the supernatural. Pullman’s writing seems to come to the same conclusion that the Bible has been revealing all along: the world we inhabit is more than science or faith alone, but their combination—spirituality!

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this [present] darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) places.

Ephesians 6:12 AMP

By no means do I claim to understand all of this. But the questions these concepts raise challenge me to grow. What is the connection between faith and science? What is spirituality, and how does it allow us to integrate science and faith? How does it help us discover God? How does it change the way we live and see the world?

We don’t have to know the answers definitively; we merely need to keep an open mind and a learning heart. In today’s edition of The Chemistry Lab, join me as we explore the essence of spiritual chemistry, learn how to make God more discoverable in our lives, and reimagine Jesus in ways we never have before.

Notebooks open. Let’s see what we can learn today. 

Chemistry was the first and only course I wanted to take when I entered high school. I signed up for it as a freshman; I remember this because my older sisters reported to my mom that this wasn’t supposed to happen. “No one takes chemistry as a freshman,” they said.

While this wasn’t completely true, it was unusual. But as an incoming freshman who didn’t even know my way around a high school of 2000 students, how would I know this unspoken rule?

I’m not a genius, but I aced that class. Why? Because a passion for the subject was lit inside me. The moment I saw the high school lab equipment and listened to my teacher reveal things I didn’t know about chemistry, my heart raced, my mind was illuminated, and I knew I was going to become a chemist. For me, chemistry was the central science that connected all the others, and I wanted to possess the knowledge that I believed unlocked the secrets of life.

Despite the fact that I never became a chemist, what has always stuck with me is the understanding that chemistry connects the foundational science of physics to all the others—hence the term “central science.” In the same way, I believe spiritual chemistry, if understood, can connect the dots of what the Bible truly teaches about following Jesus and walking with God.

Defining spiritual chemistry

We are well into our Chemistry Lab journey, so it is time to define the core concept of spiritual chemistry. We are on a mission of discovery, so we can refine this definition as we go. But for now, my definition finds its genesis in this quote about making God audible from Susannah Heschel (which you may remember from an earlier edition of The Chemistry Lab):

… For my father, the importance of prophecy lies not only in the message, but in the role of the prophet as a witness, someone who is able to make God audible and to reveal not only God’s will, but inner life. 

Susannah Heschel, Introduction to The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel

When we combine this idea of “making God audible” with what we learned earlier in Romans 1:19-20 about how God’s creation makes him known, we come to this working definition: 

Jesus is the ultimate explainer of spiritual chemistry. 

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

John 1:18 NIV

Jesus is the ultimate explainer of spiritual chemistry. In his hands it becomes a discovery process that begins when we stop separating science from faith and begin to experience their unity. 

As Colossians 1:15-17 teaches, God created the world through Jesus and for Jesus. The purpose of this is that Jesus might use every aspect of creation to explain and express the heart of God, so that all of humanity might know him:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. [16] For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. [17] He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Colossians 1:15-17 NIV

For far too long, far too many have created a scaffolding that places science and faith in different rooms, if not different houses. But these are the actions and ideas of people, not God. He does not separate; he unifies science and faith through spirituality, and Jesus is the human expression of this unity.

What does this mean for us? Every atom, cell, and chemical; every land mass, ocean, and organism; anything and everything in our universe, including the forces of darkness and light, are all part of a creation to help us know and understand God. One might say creation is God’s communication with us.

One might say creation is God’s communication with us

Jesus makes sense of everything. He is the one who explains this communication and helps us understand and follow the path to our fulfillment, where we maximize our spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical potential as human beings. 

God lives in Jesus like he has never lived in any other human: without hindrance. This distinction is what makes Jesus the height of spirituality, love, purpose, and power. This explains Jesus’s transformative effect on the world.

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.

John 3:34 NIV

Jesus experienced the Spirit’s power without limit because he was undefeated by sin. Sin limits our potential, pulls us into a dark and empty life, and hinders our ability to see God move in our lives. 

We can never reach Jesus’s level of transcendence on our own because we are limited by sin, but he opened the door for us to follow in his footsteps. He came to reveal the spiritual chemistry of a powerful life and make it available for everyone. He shows us what’s possible when the human spirit aligns with God’s.  

For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. [22] He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone.

1 Peter 2:21-22 NLT

It is this Jesus we are to focus on, follow, and imitate. When we do, we will defy the gravitational pull of life into the emptiness and darkness that limit our potential and even destroy us.

Reimagining our view of Jesus

Many people, both secular and religious, admire Jesus’s life. He was an exceptional teacher and leader who made an exceptional impact. But Jesus wasn’t just exceptional. He was extraordinary. And he was extraordinary because he mastered and personified the powerful connection between science and faith, the natural and the supernatural. 

Jesus became a priest, not by meeting the physical requirement of belonging to the tribe of Levi, but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.

Hebrews 7:16 NLT

Jesus lived a powerful life not so that we would admire it but so that we would choose to live it ourselves. Believing in a Jesus any less extraordinary than this is a failure to grasp his true spirituality. 

An exceptional (but not extraordinary) Jesus is limited by both the secular and religious insistence on compartmentalizing science and faith into separate categories (1 Corinthians 1:20-23). This thinking will prevent the exploration and discovery meant to occur when we examine the life of Jesus and the spiritual chemistry he can teach us. 

Legendary scientist Max Planck warned of this type of rigid resistance and opposition toward new scientific truths:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers

We must not become people of God who are opponents of discovery, as described by Planck. Instead, we must be the new generation willing to reimagine Jesus and the faith he seeks to explain to us.

Our journey to living a powerful life and discovering God in everything starts with Jesus, who delivered a message on spiritual chemistry in John 3:

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” …[5] Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. [6] Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”

John 3:3,5-6 NIV

Let’s break these verses down for a moment. Jesus tells us that to be born again, we must be born of water and Spirit. This isn’t a suggestion but a command. Some believe these verses point to baptism, which would turn what many consider to be a ritual into something much more transformative. Might it be a formula to produce the chemistry of change? Our bodies are already made up of 60-70% water—you could say this is our physical chemistry. So if Jesus is saying we must be born of both water and Spirit, then maybe this spiritual rebirth is a recalibration of our chemistry, bringing the physical and spiritual into perfect alignment. Being “born again” is the moment when our physical and spiritual dimensions finally integrate—when we stop living in fragments and start living in flow.

As we covered in the first issue of The Chemistry Lab, God made us with four primary dimensions:

• Heart (emotion)
• Mind (thought)
• Body (action/energy)
• Soul (spirit)

But few of us live in all four. Most of us operate from two or three at best. The goal of spiritual chemistry is to realign these dimensions into unity—not just to know God, but to walk in his power.

Jesus lived a powerful life. What if he experienced this power and did miracles because his spirit was perfectly aligned with God’s? What if spiritual growth isn’t just about learning more or gaining insight, but removing every barrier that hinders our ability to see God?

So for our weekly experiment, let’s ask ourselves these questions:

What is the chemistry of my life right now? Is it led by the physical or the spiritual, or are the dimensions of my life aligned and balanced?

If spiritual chemistry reveals God to us in every created thing, it will change the way we see and interact with every part of our lives. It will transform our friendships, marriages, churches, families, companies, and communities as we learn to see people the way Jesus did. 

Here are a few more questions to help us reflect on and reveal our spiritual chemistry:

• How am I making choices in my life? Which of the four dimensions guides my choices more than the others? 
• Am I exploring all areas of my life—the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual? What areas of my heart am I leaving unexplored?
• Which dimension dominates my relationships most? How does that affect the spiritual chemistry of those relationships?
• Are there areas of my heart that I am insecure or defensive about exploring? How do these areas reveal the need for deeper experimentation with personal transparency, spirituality, and even change? 

Once we have answered these questions, let’s come up with our own experiments to act on what we learned. What experiment can you run to bring your spiritual and physical life into alignment?  How will you know that this physical and spiritual alignment has happened? What will be your indicator? 

As we have suggested in earlier issues of The Chemistry Lab, finding a lab partner to work with is a way to discover the answers to these questions.  

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

Hebrews 2:11 NIV

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

Romans 8:29 NIV

Hebrews 2:11 and Romans 8:29 clearly reflect a call from God to experience a relationship with him that produces the same type of spirituality with which Jesus walked this earth. In fact, 1 John 2:6 ESV says, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”  To me, this means that our walk with God ought to imitate Jesus’s, which means we should be understanding, experiencing, and inspiring the same type of spiritual chemistry Jesus taught and lived. 

Here are some areas I am examining, questioning, and planning to experiment with so I can experience the spiritual chemistry of Jesus:

1. How much am I experiencing the spiritual chemistry of forgiveness?
2. Does my life manifest the spiritual chemistry of humility?
3. Do I embrace the chemistry of change and transformation in my life?
4. Do I have the resilience of someone experiencing the chemistry of destiny?
5. What is the quality of my chemistry with God when I pray?
6. How do I experience the chemistry of obedience to Scripture?
7. Am I experiencing spiritual chemistry in my marriage?
8. How effective is the spiritual chemistry of my personal leadership?
9. What is the spiritual chemistry of our small group, team, leadership team?
10. How much have I allowed God to change the chemistry of my character?
11. Am I experiencing the spiritual chemistry of creativity in my life?
12. What is my spiritual chemical reaction to mentorship and discipleship?
13. How is the organizational chemistry of my company or church? Is it spiritual?
14. How does my view and thinking about Jesus affect my capacity to experience spiritual chemistry?

God can bring incredible spiritual transformation into the life of anyone who chooses to follow and imitate Jesus. Jesus promised this, and he died to deliver it for us—something no one else in history has ever done. He is the ultimate explainer of spiritual chemistry who makes God audible through every molecule, every relationship, every emotion, thought, and person. When we reimagine Jesus in this way, he comes alive, and we experience the spiritual chemistry of a powerful and beautiful life.