A Human Perspective
How did God create everything we know and everything we have yet to discover?
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counsellor has instructed him? Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; see, he takes up the isles like fine dust. Lebanon would not provide fuel enough, nor are its animals enough for a burnt-offering. All the nations are as nothing before him; they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol? A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts for it silver chains. As a gift one chooses mulberry wood that will not rot then seeks out a skilled artisan to set up an image that will not topple. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. - Isaiah 40:12-23
In today's reading from the Book of Isaiah, God gives us a way to understand Him.
God knows that we have no way of comprehending the vast nature of God, so He speaks to us in human terms, using images we know from the world to describe what He has done for us.
The evidence we have of God's existence is all around us, in everything God created, and that is what God is sharing with us through his prophets, like Isaiah. Just look around you, He is saying. Could all this come from idols?
I think we tend to take the awesome nature of God's creation for granted. We just accept that this is the world we have, and we see its flaws and faults rather than its glory.
But that is human nature, isn't it? Don't we tend to want more rather than accept that all we have is great?
So, God speaks to us in terms we understand.
We still seek the truth, though. We want to discover the secrets of life, so we can be like God, extending our lives, controlling our world. We want to be in charge.
Maybe we should just accept what we do not understand and enjoy what we have.
Ah, but where is the challenge in that?
More to come...