I want to brag about the God I serve for a minute.
I was reading Psalm 113, which was written by an ancient Israelite according to an ancient Israelite's understanding of the universe. I reimagined what it would look like from a God's-eye-view according to a modern understanding of the universe.
Imagine that the entire universe was small to you, as small as a pebble. Now, this universe is so large that a laser that flashes at one end goes 93 billion years before it's seen at the other end.
Imagine a long human life.
Imagine ten of those.
Imagine ten of those.
Imagine ten more of those.
Imagine another ten of those. (Your brain hurting yet? We're just getting started.)
Imagine ten of those.
Imagine ten more of those.
Imagine ten of those.
Imagine another ten of those.
Imagine ten of those.
That's 93 billion years. That's how long it takes for light, the fastest thing in the universe, to cross from one end of it to the other. And that's not even the whole universe, actually; that's just the part we can see. Unless we're the center of the universe (and we aren't), it's even bigger than that.
Now imagine that that's small to you. Physical size does not apply to you, yet you are immeasurably greater than that.
So you peer into this pebble-sized universe to look for a star. It's no small task to sift through the stars. Imagine all the grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts on earth. (You can't, but try.) You might think I'm going to say, "Imagine each grain of sand is a star," but I'm not. Instead, imagine each grain of sand is a star, then imagine that all the grains of sand on 25,000 more Earths are stars.
You then find the star you're looking for. It has a few planets, and on one there are a lot of animals. When I say "a lot of animals," think again about the number of grains of sand on the whole earth. There are three times as many animals on Earth.
You pass over the overwhelming majority of the animals just to look at the few human beings. There are eight billion of them. Maybe you're familiar with the greater New York area, a vast territory that extends from the city into southwestern Connecticut, halfway up the Hudson River valley to Albany, all of Long Island, and half of New Jersey. Think about all the people who live in that huge, congested region. Now imagine 400 regions just like it. That's the number of people on earth.
So you scan through all the people until you find one person, just one. He has no home. He sits on the pavement. Dirty clothes and matted hair cling to him. You glance at that hair on his head and swiftly count every follicle. Then you say to him silently, "I've come looking for you, and I found you. You may be down, but today I'm lifting you up."
That's what my God does.
He raises the poor from the dirt, and lifts up the needy from the garbage pile, that he might seat him with princes, with the princes of his people [Psalm 113:7–8 NET].
That God stoops way, way down from beyond the reaches of the universe to see you. He knows you. He invites you to know him.