CHAPTER 2You Are Designed to Win

Then God said, “Let us make man (humanity) in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Genesis 1

The Craftsperson and Their Chair

As I write this, I am sitting in a handcrafted Stickley chair. (For those who have never heard of Stickley, it is a fourth‐generation firm out of New York that builds furniture the old‐fashioned way, one piece at a time.) If I were to ask the artisan the purpose of their chairs, I might get a variety of answers:

  • A comfortable place for people to sit;
  • A keepsake for generations to hand down;
  • To make a living;
  • The joy of creating them.

These four answers fall into two categories: the first two state requirements for the chair, and the second two are requirements for the craftsperson. Note that the requirements are very different depending on which perspective you use.

In this chapter, we will drill into the requirements for humans (the chair) as stated in the creation narrative. And we also explore how these requirements were satisfied in the design of humans.

In the engineering world, “requirements” state what you want to accomplish, and “design” ...

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