It’s probably an exercise in futility attempting to write this. I’ve sat here wordless all week searching for a means of expressing the thoughts the Holy Spirit put in my heart. I’m going to ignore the normal rules of writing grammar such as few adverbs, and no infinitives. I need all the words I can muster up to convey a subject beyond human language. I decided the best opening was simply sharing my struggle and why. Note the title is not a question. It is an exclamation yet an underlying question exists for which no complete and absolute answer exists or will ever exist in any form of human communication. My quest for understanding this subject began over ten years ago. Depressed, I locked myself in my office the entire day and read A.W. Tozer’s book Knowledge of the Holy while my computer’s screen saver scrolled through images taken by the Hubble telescope. At the end of the day, it seems God allowed me to glimpse in my spirit a flash of His greatness. I was overwhelmed, even frightened, and fell down on my knees crying out, “God, who are You!”
God commanded us not to create an image of Him of any kind. I doubt any reader sits down with a piece of wood, a knife, and a chisel and makes an image. However, inadvertently, we all tend to create some kind of mental image in order to bring God to a place of manageable terms through human language and human concept. Yet, no list of adjectives, or the best of illustrations come anywhere close. The reason—God is infinite. What is God like? God is not like anything. All that exist, He made. David wrote, The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands (Ps 19:1). Yet, note what it does not say. The heavens declare His glory, but they do not declare God. They declare the work of His hands, not God. The reason: Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? (Psa 113:5, 6 NIV)? Despite the wonder and splendor we view looking up at the stars and scanning the images from Hubble, God is so far beyond and so much greater that He must stoop down, humble Himself even to look on the heavens.
Last week after going to bed, I watched a program about the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in October 2018. NASA positioned the Hubble 354 miles from earth. The Webb will be 930,000 miles out in space bringing images never before seen. During the program, it showed multiple images from Hubble. As it happened years ago, I was suddenly overwhelmed, filled with the fear of God, and with wonder again thinking, God, who are You! I realized that in my quest for an understanding I had reduced God to the vastness of the universe because I couldn’t comprehend beyond that. My quest ended at that moment because I knew the Lord is far beyond human intellect. By faith, we must accept that fact, and embrace what He has revealed about Himself. When we bring God to a manageable point of understanding, we immediately limit Him. We limit Him because any illustration, analogy, or definition revolves around something He created including language.
Look at another amazing fact about God. The One who stoops to look on the heavens, came to earth, became a man born in a stable, experienced temptation in all things as we do, emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant and humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:7, 8). Like David we may ask, What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him (Psa 8:4)? Yet, God who is beyond our comprehension, so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). The other amazing fact that actually frightens me is He lives in me through the Holy Spirit. The One Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, And marked off the heavens by the span, And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure, And weighed the mountains in a balance And the hills in a pair of scales (Isa 40:12). Why do we ever worry about anything? Why are we struggling with the problems of today?
With only the Hubble telescope, scientists think that our universe may have as many as 500 billion galaxies. What will the Webb telescope reveal? Just more heavens telling of the glory of God; And their expanse declaring the work of His hands. Just remember, He is far above all this and has to stoop just to behold them.
God is greater than all your problems, greater than all your fears, greater than all your weaknesses, greater than Satan’s attacks, greater than your doubts, and greater than your temptations. And He lives in you.
Sustaining Word for the Week: Meditate on the greatness of God this week and pray you might glimpse His infinite transcendence in your heart. Your life will change forever.