Dear God,
My parents, who are with you now, made a wonderful life, and their work and their relationships spawned many good things, including myself and my brother. In turn, our relationships and work have spawned good things, including their wonderful grandchildren.
The concept of a pebble being dropped in the middle of a placid lake and the ripples that emanate from it that go on and grow indefinitely is a good illustration of this. But Mom and Dad were not the original pebble. Nor were their parents, nor their parents, nor any human parents. The pebble is you, Lord.
This is where the analogy breaks down, because you are far from a tiny, insignificant pebble. You are the creator of the world and everything in it. You are the creator of the heavens and everything in them. You are the creator of heaven where we all hope to be with you when our earthly race is finished.
How one ripple affects another! How intricate the ripples are, yet how random they appear to us! But you know every single pebble, every single ripple and how each will interact with every other, far beyond our ability to calculate, quantify, or understand.
That’s where faith comes in. And trust. Knowing and believing you are in total control, no matter how chaotic things seem to our tiny, human minds. Knowing that those ripples, which can become tidal waves, are all part of your plan. And that you are working out all of those ripple interactions for the good of your people, whether we understand or even like how you are doing that or not.
The everyday worries and struggles of getting along in the world are so small, so insignificant in relation to the gigantic work you are doing for us all. And even these tiny, granular issues, which seem so large to us, are a mere blip in the context of our lives. But even those tiny blips, some of which we don’t even recognize, are all on you radar. You know where and when and how every blip will affect each person it touches, and what lesson it is designed to impart.
I hear people say they don’t believe in God or that they don’t believe your incredible power and might. They suggest that you do not care about some things. I used to believe that there were matters to small for your attention. I used to laugh at athletes after a big win pausing to thank God for the victory – as though you care who wins and loses.
I hear people say there is no rhyme or reason to how life unfolds. That we are all just random molecules bouncing off one another with no plan, no rules, no patterns. I would suggest that they haven’t looked hard enough, and the reason for that is because they literally cannot look hard enough. Much of what you do is invisible to us, who have limited vision, knowledge and imagination. We can no more understand what you are doing than a snake can understand how to play a piano. The capacity to do so is simply not there.
Yet we are curious and persistent people. And some of us are proud of our intellect, to the point where we hit its limits and then announce that there simply is no more. No more answers, no more data, no more observable evidence.
But at the point where there are no more answers, whether you are Einstein or Steven Hawking or just me sitting here reading the sports page, with no more information to crunch, and no final answer, do we simply assume that we have the maximum capacity to understand? Or do we look to you, the one source of all answers, all awareness, and most of all, the source of all love and power?
A prerequisite to faith may be the humility to admit that we are limited and that there is power far beyond us, no matter how accomplished we may be in this world. Truly wise people have this awareness. That your creation has no humanly observable end. That no matter how much peeling we do, there is always more to the onion.
Lord, thank you for the insights you bring to me, like these. Thank you for helping me to reach those who have not yet come to faith by providing a scenario to help them understand and believe. Thank you for helping me believe and be so enthusiastic as to what to share what I am learning.
You are the way, the truth and the life. I am so grateful for your love, care, and friendship, as improbable as a relationship like that may seem to others.
Thank you for blessing my life. I love you very much.
In Jesus’ name I pray, AMEN!
Jim Donaher is a writer, blogger, and author of the soon to be published, "Call Him, He's Home: A Regular Person's Guide to Prayer" Click or tap the title to read an excerpt.
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Quote and share with attribution. Thank you!