‘Back in 1998, when Ashley was about seven, I was in my home office and had a Deep Space picture similar to this as my computer wallpaper. Ashley came into my office and, curious, asked what this image was. I asked her a series of questions as follows:
How big are you compared to this room?
“Pretty big,” was her reply.
How about this house?
“A little smaller.”
I went on in this fashion, asking about Denver, then Colorado, the USA, the world. Each time, Ashley correctly replied that her comparative size was greatly dimishing. I showed her a model of the Solar System and asked the same question.
“I’m very small.”
Then I showed her a picture of a galaxy, and showed her where our solar system fit in the galaxy, and asked the question again.
“I am nothing compared to a galaxy,” she stated.
I went back to the wallpaper. “All of these are galaxies in one small part of the Universe.” She stared at the picture, and I’ll never forget her response.
“Whoa!”
Out of the mouths of children.
In this picture, there are estimated to be about 10,000 galaxies of the 100 Billion (give or take a million) galaxies in the Universe. Each with roughly 100 Billion stars.
I then asked Ashley how important she was if the God that spoke all of this into existence in a Word, sent His Son to this less than a speck of dust Earth, to live among the people. That He came to testify to the truth of His love for His people, and showed His love by giving His life for us, rising again on the third day to save us. Again, out of the mouth of children:
“Whoa!”
The God that I believe in is the God of the Bible, who spoke the Universe into existence, and upholds all of creation by the word of His power. He knows where every molecule, atom, and sub-atomic particle in the entire Universe is at every moment. In light of this, I want to ask you all some questions now:
Question 1 – Do you believe in this God? If your answer is yes, then go on to the next question. (If not, you can keep going, but I would love to talk to you about this God.)
Question 2 – Do you believe this God loves you? Another yes? Keep reading.
Question 3 – Do you believe this God wants the best for you? Caution here. I did not ask if He wants what you think is the best, but what He knows is best for you. Yes again?
Question 4 – Do you believe that you, or the God of the Bible has the better imagination? You may need to read that again. Strange question, I know. It seems obvious, but I’m wanting to get you to think some here. I would hope that you agree with me that the God of the Bible has an infinitely greater imagination. If so, keep going.
Question 5 – When you think about your life, and consider what is the best you can imagine for your life, and then think about what the best that God has for you, what are the chances that these are different from each other? How about vastly different from each other? Yes?
Again, the best life you may have in mind, and the best God has for you are likely completely different. Mainly because the best we want for ourselves typically involves a life of ease and comfort. God’s best for us has the end in view of glorifying Him, but also perseverance, maturity, and endurance in the faith. To get to this point, faith needs to be tested, refined, challenged. Which means we need to be tested, refined, challenged. We need to go through trials. Sometimes really difficult trials.
I still truly believe that we are designed by God for accomplishment, we are engineered for success, and we are endowed with the seeds of victory. But all of this must be seen from the perspective that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He prepared beforehand that we should walk in. What does this mean in practice?
We see in the Bible that God called some to be very wealthy; Solomon, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others. And some, God to a life of hardship, even to the point of being martyred for the faith; Samson, Stephen, Peter, Paul, and others. And we see people called to everywhere on the spectrum in between. The question is, are we walking in the good works God has called us to? More questions.
How do we know what those good works are? If God prepared good works for us to walk in, has He hidden them from us? Do only a select few happen to stumble on these good works and are blessed by God? Or is it that we have forgotten how to determine what these are?
Check out the next post to find out what I think. Until then, if you are not sure who this God is, or would like to discuss this more, contact me at steven@co-inspire.biz. I would love to chat with you about this most important topic. I also have a Retreat coming up that will get deeper into this topic. You can find the link here.
There’s still plenty of room for the in-person event. If you can’t make that, sign up for the live-stream, or the download (which includes the live stream). This is designed for individuals age 12 and above, or for whole families (or a parent and their kids), as well as business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, and employees. Anyone who wants to see more success in their life. Check it out, and sign up today.