God is BIG, I am small

Just came back from the Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman Indescribable Tour concert, and it was a fantastic time of worship of our God. Louie Giglio helped to put things in perspective for us. We think we're so big, that our problems are so important. But God gently reminds us that we are smaller, and He is bigger than we'd like to think. God tells Job, "Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?" (Job 38:31a) Thirteen light-years across, God has no problem holding them in His hands.

We now guess that there may be 100 billion galaxies, each galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars... and God knows them all by name. "He determines the numbers of the stars, and calls them each by name." (Ps.147:4). Somewhere in there, not even registering the tiniest blip on the cosmic radar, is our end of the galaxy. And in there, hardly registering as a dust speck, is earth. Somehow, billions of us fit on this dust speck, where we find our homes, where we find everything we hold dear. And yet the God who created the vast universe through the sheer force of His will, who created every single star and calls it by name, also knows each of us on this dust speck by name. "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Ps. 8:4)

And this vast God, who holds the heavens in His hands, chose to somehow shrink himself to walk with us and join us on this dust speck. I had never thought about it that way before. I don't think I'll ever look at Phil 2:6 the same way ever again: "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped." God knows us, and He knows our problems, but sometimes we don't see His solution because He's painting on a canvas far bigger, far more complex than we can possibly comprehend. It gave me a whole new sense of the word "indescribable."

Those who went to the concert will recognize these pictures:

The Whirlpool Galaxy (left) is located 37 million light years from the earth. It is more than 100 thousand light years across, with an estimated more than 160 billion stars. This picture was taken by the Hubble Space telescope.

A picture of the center of the Whirlpool Galaxy (right), taken with the Wide Field Planetary camera on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This cross is 100 light-years in diameter.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands." Ps. 19:1