It's Not About Me - Max Lucado [9]
What you are to a paper airplane, God is to you.Take a sheet of paper and make one. Contrast yourself with your creation. Challenge it to a spelling contest. Who will win? Dare it to race you around the block.Who is faster? Invite the airplane to a game of one-on-one basketball. Will you not dominate the court?
And well you should. The thing has no brainwaves, no pulse. It exists only because you formed it and flies only when someone throws it. Multiply the contrasts between you and the paper plane by infinity, and you will begin to catch a glimpse of the disparity between God and us.
To what can we compare God? “Who in the skies is comparable to the LORD? Who among the sons of the mighty is like the LORD?” (Psalm 89:6). “To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him?” (Isaiah 40:18).
Even God asks,“To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?” (Isaiah 40:25 NLT). As if his question needed an answer, he gives one:
I am God—I alone! I am God, and there is no one else like me. Only I can tell you what is going to happen even before it happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish. I will call a swift bird of prey from the east—a leader from a distant land who will come and do my bidding. I have said I would do it, and I will. (Isaiah 46:9-11 NLT)
Any pursuit of God’s counterpart is vain. Any search for a godlike person or position on earth is futile. No one and nothing compares with him. No one advises him. No one helps him. It is he who “executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another” (Psalm 75:7 ESV).
You and I may have power. But God is power.We may be a lightning bug, but he is lightning itself. “Wisdom and power are his” (Daniel 2:20 NIV).
TRACE THE UNIVERSE
BACK TO GOD’S POWER,
AND FOLLOW HIS
POWER UPSTREAM
TO HIS WISDOM.
Consider the universe around us. Unlike the potter who takes something and reshapes it, God took nothing and created something. God created everything that exists by divine fiat ex nihilo (out of nothing). He did not rely on material that was preexistent or coeternal. Prior to creation the universe was not a dark space. The universe did not exist. God even created the darkness. “I am the one who creates the light and makes the darkness” (Isaiah 45:7 NLT). John proclaimed, “You created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created” (Revelation 4:11 NLT).
Trace the universe back to God’s power, and follow his power upstream to his wisdom. God’s omniscience governs his omnipotence. Infinite knowledge rules infinite strength.“He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength” (Job 9:4 KJV). “With him is wisdom and strength” (Job 12:13 KJV). “He is mighty in strength and wisdom” (Job 36:5 KJV).
His power is not capricious or careless. Quite the contrary. His wisdom manages and equals his strength. Paul announced, “Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out” (Romans 11:33 NIV).
His knowledge about you is as complete as his knowledge about the universe. “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether....Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them” (Psalm 139:4, 16 ESV).
The veils that block your vision and mine do not block God’s. Unspoken words are as if uttered. Unrevealed thoughts are as if proclaimed. Unoccurred moments are as if they were history. He knows the future, the past, the hidden, and the untold. Nothing is concealed from God. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present.
King David marveled, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (Psalm 139:7). God reminds us, “I am everywhere—both near and far, in heaven and on earth” (Jeremiah 23:23-24 CEV).
INFINITE KNOWLEDGE
RULES INFINITE
STRENGTH.
See the “holy otherness” of God? In Isaiah’s encounter, those who see him most clearly regard