The Vastness Of God

Want to know how vast God is?  Stand outside on a cloudless night in August with no moon or city lights, and try to count the myriad stars splashed across the sky in all directions.  Stand on a mountain top and try to imagine how many more mountains rise up behind the few tops you can see.  Stand on a coastal beach and try to conceive of how many ocean waves there are between you and land on the other side.  That is the vastness of God.

Then look into the mirror.  There you will see God’s attention to detail, your unique component part of all that vastness.  It is one of the many mysteries about God – the unfathomable vastness of creation, yet the focus on each single unique detail that is You.  And all Others.  And all other Forms on this planet.

Therein lies the Lesson.  As we strive to think larger, on a much broader plane, far more inclusively – thinking as God thinks – and less on our individual self-centered wants, we need to remember God’s example.  It is in the details played out within the biggest picture, the paying attention to and taking care of each part, that combines together to create the totality of this Universe.  A painting requires myriad dots of color swept by perhaps thousands of brush strokes for the substance of the ultimate picture to come into full view.  So it also takes each individual coming together to create a human race.

God made the billions of us.  God made each of us.  With full attention to the details.  We need to respect, and seek to emulate, such careful attention to detail while never losing sight of the purpose of the resulting sum.  All of humanity matters.  But so do our details matter.