Wednesday, March 8

Straining Words for Greatness

I've been meditating recently on the vastness and greatness of God.
The following is a paraphrase of the ideas in Isaiah 40:10-31, when
Isaiah was obviously contemplating that aspect of unseen reality.

-God is so strong he can do anything he pleases--he has ultimate
power over everyone and everything in ths cosmos.

-Yet he is as tender as a shepherd, as a mother caring for her children.

-His size makes the entire cosmos smaller than a peanut in his hand.

-His wisdom outstrips Solomon, Plato and Socrates, Copernicus,
Einstein, and Greenspan rolled into one--their knowledge put together
amounts to a speck of dust compared to his wisdom.

-God is so great that all the billions of the earth's population are
less significant than a dust mite is to us.

-He is so worthy of praise and honor and glory that if we did
everything in our power and stripped all the resources of the
universe bare, it would not begin to honor or celebrate him adequately.

-God defies description; confounds comparison; words, images,
imaginatoin all fail miserably trying to say anything significant
about him.

-Isn't it patently obvious to all of us? You already knew this, right?

-The cosmos is like a decoration in God's house. Hitler and Mussolini
were like fleas; the former USSR, China, and the U.S. are
SuperNothings to God. Their lifespan is a nanosecond to him.

-Everything discovered by Galileo, Copernicus and the Hubble
Telescope was thought up, enacted, and currently maintained by God.

-How can you complain that God is distant, grumble that he doesn't
listen, and gripe that he doesn't care about your little needs? He
has so much energy and attention that nothing will ever wear out his
capacity to attend to and care for every minute detail in the
universe and in our lives.

-He's so smart he's got everything figured out, and he's not worried
about any of the outcomes.

-Here's the cool thing. Anyone weak can be strengthened by him,
anyone exhausted can receive limitless energy: so much so that
they'll be able to fly. They'll run marathons effortlessly. They
could walk around the entire earth without getting short of breath or
a single sore muscle.

I really wonder if that is how our bodies are designed to function,
but they need to be plugged into the right power source--the infinite
Creator of the universe--rather than all the things we use to try to
increase our energy, strength and endurance. (Food, sex, stimulation,
friendship, entertainment, steroids . . .)

Isn't that a trip?

How pinched and sorry my view of the world is when i think that i, or
anyone else, is great in any way. When i think a movie or TV show is
fantastic, or that the latest self-help therapy is really going to
change the world. What a shriveled tunnel-view!

i would somehow like to meditate on this view of reality until the
eye of my soul-imagination constantly sees this enormous God behind
and through and in everything.

Then i think i would start to relax a little and have a little bit
more perspective, wisdom, and freedom.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

great paraphrase, Jon. Thanks for sharing your meditations. I'm linking to this post from my blog.