In Rome, the famous Pantheon, which was completed around a.d. 128 and has an unreinforced concrete dome, still stands. Some ancient aqueducts are still used today as well. And in these structures, if cracks develop, they heal themselves. For years, researchers were stumped. How did ancient engineers come up with a material that has not only survived for thousands of years but has actually gotten stronger—even structures built in harsh conditions like seawalls or sewers or in areas that are seismically active?
Finally in 2023, researchers from MIT, Harvard University, and laboratories in Italy and Switzerland published a paper in the journal Science Advances sharing that they discovered the reason: hot mixing and lime casts. (Google it. I’m not an engineer, and I’ll mess it up if I try to explain it.)
However, because I am a devotion writer, I get to share that people who believe in Jesus are like Roman concrete. Instead of getting your strength from hot mixing and lime casts, you get it from God. As you grow closer to him, you “live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience” (Colossians 1:10,11).
This means that whatever harsh conditions you face, you have great endurance. Whenever the cracks happen that inevitably come from living in a broken world, God’s glorious might heals you. When the world feels like it’s shaking, he gives you strength to keep standing.
