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Have you ever wondered how God can hear so many people praying at once, from all over the world? Our God is too small in our eyes, and when our eyes are opened to his greatness, it can be quite an awesome revelation.
I was driving on a highway one afternoon, when the clouds formed in such a way as to create great rays of streaming light fanning out all across the vista. As I looked in wonder at the vastness of area that the rays covered, it dawned on me: if my sister, on the other side of the country, were to look up at this very moment, she would see the same sunshine that I see. In fact, ALL people on this side of the world, even thousands of miles apart, could receive the same warmth of the same sun at the same time. And I came to understand more deeply how God can be present to each individual at the same time - just as millions across a hemisphere can be warmed simultaneously by the inexhaustible sunshine. As it says in Romans, "the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him." Not only to all, but to all at the same time! The more astonishing fact still, is that God not only made the sun, but he made millions, some say billions, more like it.
I got another glimpse of the greatness of God one day when I opened a magazine. I looked down upon a photo of what I thought was the sun with its planets revolving around it. But on closer look, I was struck by the fact that this photo was not of a solar system, it was a photo of an ATOM! An atom with electrons and protons revolving around it! And then this understanding burst upon my mind: the largest thing in creation is actually a picture of the smallest thing in creation! How great is our God!
Later, on the day when I boarded an airplane for the first time, I thrilled at the sensation of being lifted higher and higher into the heights. But as I looked down, people and then cars and then houses become smaller and smaller, and I began to reflect on the smallness of our puny beings with our puffed-up egos. We have no reluctance to step on an ant. Yet from the heights, we look smaller than ants. As we rose far above the earth, we finally could distinguish nothing at all anymore, and loudly the Scripture from the Psalms broke forth across my mind: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?" Indeed!
The extravagance of the creation, such vast worlds, so many planetary systems, so many suns, suggests the most humbling question -why would this great God care about the likes of us mortal and rebellious humanity? Yet he not only created us, but gave his son to redeem us out of our fallenness. How the humility of God far surpasses the grandiose thoughts and intents of man!
