Badly Drawn God 4:
Too Busy for Me
Many years ago, a job ad in the paper caught my eye "Managing director of the Universe"
Wow that's a job with some responsibility I thought, until I released "The Universe" was a magazine.
The fourth badly drawn God I want to consider is to think that the God who is responsible for the terrifying vastness of the Universe cannot possibly be interested in the lives of individuals on this insignificant planet.
"We know, for instance, that if a man is in charge of fifty other men he can fairly easily make himself familiar with the history, character, abilities, and peculiarities, of each man.… If he is in charge of five thousand men he may in general be wise and benevolent; but he cannot, indeed he does not attempt to, know his men as individuals. …. we are forced to realize that the individual care of the "one in charge" must grow less and less. This realization has permeated our unconscious minds, and we find it almost inevitably suggested to us that the Highest of All must have the fewest contacts with the individual. Indeed if He is Infinitely High the idea of contact with an infinitesimal individual becomes laughable. But only if we are modelling God upon what we know of man."
JB Phillips "Your God is too Small" (abridged)
This view leads to questions such as "how can God possibly answer my prayers – he's too busy", because we are projecting our own limitations onto God. God has the capacity to be interested in you as an individual, and he goes further than interest – he demonstrates through Jesus his love for you.
If you have never read the "Angels' point of View" from the opening of JB Phillips "New Testament Christianity" – try to do so.
Jesus is the absolute demonstration that God is interested in you as an individual and despite our own limited imagination, does have the capacity to be not only interested in you – but in Love with you.
Ask God to show you where you doubt his interest and Love for you personally.
Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? Luke 12: 27-28 [MSG]
Guy Mowbray | |
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