A Big God

"For in him we live and move and have our being." —Acts 17:28

When I consider the vastness of God's presence, I am overwhelmed. I know I write about this often, but I still struggle to comprehend just how universal His presence truly is.

Everything that exists — exists in Him.

Let that sink in.

Imagine the stars. Have you ever seen all of them? I remember camping by a lake on a frigid winter night. The sky was so clear, so full, it looked like a garment wrapped around the earth. Thousands upon thousands of stars. Later I learned there are an estimated 350 billion galaxies in the known universe, each one home to billions — if not trillions — of stars. The number is somewhere around 10 to the 25th power. That's ten followed by twenty-five zeros. Ten quadrillion. That's a really big universe — which suddenly feels like the biggest understatement of all time.

Now consider this: The entire universe exists within Him.

He holds the stars in His hand.

If God were a gingerbread man, the entire universe would get lost in His bellybutton.

God is big.

Bigger than you. Bigger than me. Bigger than all of us combined.

Bigger than everything that has ever existed.

It all exists within Him.

The universe is vast. But it still exists within Him. It's easy to imagine that the galaxies are closer to God's scale than we are. But they're not. They are just bigger dirt.

*Who is like the LORD our God,
Who dwells on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in the heavens and in the earth?
—Psalms 113:5-6

God reigns on high. He is above all of creation. So for Him to view any of it requires that He stoop down.

It's easy to imagine that God has to stoop to notice me. According to Carl Sagan, I exist on a speck of dust floating on a sunbeam. I am small.

But to consider that God has to stoop to view the galaxies? That's next level. But that is reality.

This God — Who in His vastness, has to bend down to see the Milky Way — doesn't stop there. He keeps bending. Leaning in. Kneeling closer and closer. The Hebrew word translated, "humbles," is the same word translated elsewhere as "worship." And it carries the same connotation — to bow, lay prostrate, to humble oneself before one who is greater. This is the posture described in this verse. God bows all the way down to my level. To see me eye to eye. Not to tower above me. To frighten me. To put me in my place. But to show me in the clearest manner possible that He knows me. He accepts me. He loves me.

And He assumes this same posture before you.

God. The LORD. The Almighty, Creator of the universe, assumes the posture of worship toward His own creation to lift us up.

This big God goes to the ash heap, to set us with princes (Psalm 113:7-8)

"Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast."
—Psalm 139:7-10

God is everywhere.

God is all the time.

Let me say that again:

God is everywhere. God is all the time.

Everything we do... we do within Him.

And there's nothing we can do about that.

We can't escape Him. We can't hide from Him.

It's pointless to run. Where would we go?

We are in Him.

And everything that has ever happened — or ever will happen — is happening within Him — right now.

It's hard to wrap our minds around. I know.

I've been thinking about this for years. And the more I think about it, the more I realize:

I'll never fully comprehend it.

At least not this side of heaven.

So what does that mean for my sin?

"As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." —Psalm 103:12

I used to take great comfort in this verse. I imagined my sin moving away from me — and from God — faster than the speed of light.

Forever.

But now I think that's only partly true.

While my sin is moving away from me, it isn't moving away from God.

It can't.

Because it happened within Him.

So it remains within Him.

What does He do with it?

He saves it.

There's a stunning scene in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, where a man is tormented by a lizard whispering lies into his ear. An angel slays the lizard — and to the man's amazement, it transforms into a magnificent stallion. He climbs onto its back, and the two of them dash off — bounding through the mountains of heaven.

I wonder if that's how it will be.

Will the sins that hounded us our entire lives be transformed into the very tools that carry us into glory?

Laura Story asks, "What if the trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?"

What a question.

I believe the answer is that they are.

Our God is a big, big God.