Our amazing ability to Underestimate God!

3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.  psalm 145: 3    

So how, exactly, do we manage to withhold proper praise for a God who spoke everything
into existence? I am going to suggest that there are a myriad of reasons why we probably
all come up short of glorifying and even understanding the amazing-ness of our Almighty
Father in Heaven.

I'm not sure, first of all, if we are even capable of fathoming such an incredible being. He
is holy different from us. That difference cannot be quantified or even categorized so we
often times just refuse to ponder God.

He is apart from us in the sense that we, luckily, cannot see Him. Due to our human nature,
which tends to allow is to wrap ourselves in our own existence and lives, we therefore
tend to go for stretches of time with God on the back burner, as it were. He may not
even be a conscious part of our day if things are busy.

A lot of this is also wrapped up in our tendency to be prideful; even to believe that we
do not need God unless things go wrong, problems crop up that we cannot solve or
needs become apparent that cause us to 'remember' God due to our sudden need for
Him.

God seeks our dependence and our understanding that He is in charge and most
capable of caring for us and our lives completely. It is surely the case that His grace
is extended to us in so many ways and at so many times when we aren't even aware
of it. It would be so very easy for God to become angry and to abandon His loving care
were He not such a gracious God. Since we are His creation, He, more than anyone,
is aware of His created.

I think, in some way, underestimating God may help us to be suddenly aware of Him
and in awe of Him, as we should always be. The cure is to set up patterns that
cause us to be reminded of Him: prayer, reading His word, fellowship with other
believers, doing and saying things that duly bring glory to Him.

He is magnificent, supreme, beyond our ability to clearly comprehend Him and
His love for us. Praise God!

Just be careful about the size of the mountain!

Mark 11:23-24 ESV / 

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  

I read with some degree of horror, this week, about a pastor who had been in the news
before for having live snakes in his church in an attempt to prove faith.

Mark 16:17-18 records, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will … pick up snakes with their hands.” 

Turns out that there is some debate about not only what is being said, here, but also about
whether these particular verses were part of the original bible texts. For whatever the reason, this pastor and I am sure there are others, risk life and limb in an attempt to
prove faith in God. 

The Bible is the word of God; it is truth; yet, there are parts that, quite honestly, are written with symbolism and cannot, in my opinion, be taken absolutely literally. There is no
question that God did and does provide unbelievably miraculous outcomes. The
outcomes are the result of God's ability to do anything He chooses to do. This does not
encourage me to rush out and jump into a den of lions. Now I have a house-cat named
Samantha that presents some degree of danger due to her unpredictability and a set
of unforgiving claws, but she is not a lioness. I, also, am not Daniel!

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, also I am not. I don't even cook on the stove without

gloves and pot holders at the ready. Again, God is not limited in any way.

But we have to be careful not to assume that all language and statements in the Bible are
literal. I don't know about you, but I am having difficulty imagining my ability to stand
before a mountain of any size, pray fervently that it can be moved, and watching it
change locations. Not even a molehill!

I can show my faith by works that provide proof that my heart is set on doing the work
of God and bring glory to Him. I, being human and pretty old, am limited by those
factors and feel no need to attempt to preform any amazing fetes designed to prove
faith; I just need to live a life that shines with the light of Jesus, as best I can.

I will leave the cool stuff to God. He isn't limited by the size of the mountain!
Praise God!

Could use some help, Mr. Einstein

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.  Psalm 139

The average weight of the human brain is 3 pounds. There are 100 billion neurons in
the brain and there are 1 quadrillion connections in the average brain. (I think that's a lot!)
It seems to be common knowledge that Einstein's brain was taken from the rest of his
body; it's whereabouts seem uncertain and the conclusions resulting from autopsies
vary. It is probably a safe assumption that Einstein was a brilliant man with a highly
functioning brain, indeed. (Did I mention that brains, themselves, are not the most
pleasant things to look at!)

Nevertheless, I'm certain that even Einstein could not explain some of the wonders
one discovers and questions one encounters when we look at our wondrous God. 
Take, for instance, the whole idea of the Triune God. That's one God in three persons.
All three persons are fully and wholly God, yet God is one and Christianity is a
monotheistic religion. After listening, recently, to Wayne Grudem discuss this whole
issue of the Trinity and conclude that he did not know how to explain it, that was good
enough for me to realize that such things are not going to be understood by folks
like me. Scripture is clear that there is a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit so, even
though I can't understand that concept, I am fully confident in believing it. In fact,
I am in awe of the concept.

The above scripture from Psalm 139 is another amazing concept; God knows as
completely. Now, there are a bunch of us He has to know! He doesn't just know
us by our white rock name, He knows us completely, down to each and every hair
on our heads. He's probably not working with a Rolodex, He doesn't need a
complex system for recall of information on His people...He just knows us. Amazing,
isn't it. Mind boggling, comes to mind. 

It just shows that we, as humans, were never meant to be able to understand the
ways of God. I see it as comforting. We aren't, in so many ways, on a need to know
basis. He, God, can handle things. We just need to sit back, listen quietly, pray
fervently and praise Him continuously for His grace and His being. He created us
and we are His! Praise God Almighty!