Tuesday, March 17, 2020

St Patrick's Day 2020: God is ____-er than me...

It started as one of those simple brotherly games. Josiah (5) was stating random facts to Jacob (10).  Jacob would respond with a DING if he was correct or an AAAA! if he was incorrect. Josiah would say things like "a bunny is bigger than a giraffe" and then receive an AAAA! from his brother.

They had been playing for a few minutes when I heard Josiah say, "God is bigger than me."

AAAA!

So he tried again, "God is smaller than me."

AAAA!

Even at five, he had a basic concept of size. He knew what bigger than and smaller than meant.  Frustrated, Josiah asked his brother, "What then?"

That's when Jacob said "God is the same size as me."

I wanted to yell DING because he had just spoken some deep theological truth. Yes, God is bigger than me. He created the universe and "the train of his robe fills the temple" (Isaiah 6:1). He is small enough to know us before we are formed in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5). Don't think that's small? The human ovum is less than 4/1000 of an inch.

Yet, the real miracle of God is that He is also our same size: "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you— unless indeed you fail the test?" (2 Corinthians 13:5, NASB, emphasis mine).

It reminds me of a portion of the Prayer of Saint Patrick:
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

May it be so.

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