Our God Both Big and Small

One aspect of God’s bigness is His smallness. That is, He is so great, His greatness must invade even the smallest of places. Using other terms, not only is God transcendent. He is also immanent. He is not either/or. He is both/and. 

Yes, God is big. As far as the universe stretches, He is bigger. The unit of measure, of course, is not the same. God is not measured by miles or light-years. He is unbounded. One mile or a million are both the same to Him. But we have to say, limited as we are by human language and human minds, that God is bigger. Likewise, God is older than the universe. He was and is before all things. But again, God is not measured in years. He is not old. It is just that all times are in His hands, as He is timeless. 

If these ideas about God’s transcendence are reality-rattling to us, then also are ideas about His immanence. To think that God has His fingerprints on every square inch of this world is an amazing thought.

Let’s think of it this way: God created all that there is with one, over-arching purpose: that all creation would glorify Him. That is, every bird that sings, and every frog that croaks, sings or croaks to the glory of God. The sun that shines does so to the glory of God. The flowers that beautify do so to the glory of God. All creation, though shadowed by sin, seeks to glorify God, or, is frustrated that it can’t.

And so, every piece of tissue in your body was designed to glorify God. Your mind was created to reflect and contribute to His glory. Right down to your molecules and cells and DNA, all designed and desiring to contribute to the song of the ages that glorifies His name. Or, frustrated that they do not.

You see, when God creates, it is not some distant project. If God has a serious design for creation that relates to His own glory, this whole “heaven and earth” project is not like that old shed you built in your back yard. God cares, and He cares deeply about the outer edges, and the inner workings, of this creation.

What should shake us about this is that we were built to glorify God in every aspect of our being, and we so scarcely acknowledge it. We so often suppose that we were built for ourselves, and for our own purposes. And then we find that this God is watching each thought, each reaction, each breath. And we are frustrated that we fall so far short.