Awesome in Power and Glory
by Greg Herrick
One of the attributes of God’s greatness is His infinite and awesome power, particularly displayed in creation and redemption. In a children’s book entitled Is A Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? Robert Wells gives us a taste of God’s power in creation; he takes us from a size we can grasp to one we can’t.1
The largest animal on Earth is the blue whale. Just the flippers on its tail are bigger than most animals on Earth.
But a blue whale isn’t anywhere as big as a mountain. If you put hundreds of blue whales in a huge jar, you could put millions of “whale jars” in a hollowed out Mount Everest.
But Mount Everest isn’t nearly as big as the Earth. If you stacked a hundred Mount Everests on top of each other they would only be a whisker on the face of the Earth.
And the Earth isn’t anywhere as big as the sun. You could fit over one million earths inside the sun.
But the sun, which scientists tell us is a medium size star, isn’t anywhere as big as the red supergiant star called Antares. Fifty million–that’s right, count them all–fifty million of our suns could fit inside Antares.
But Antares isn’t anywhere as big as the Milky Way galaxy. Billions of stars, including supergiants like Antares, as well as countless comets and asteroids, actually make up the Milky Way galaxy.
But the Milky Way galaxy isn’t nearly as big as the universe. There are literally, billions of other galaxies in the universe. And yet, filled with billions of galaxies, the universe is almost totally empty. The distances from one galaxy to another are beyond our fertile imaginations. It simply defies exhaustive comprehension. And so does the One who made it! To think that He did all this with just a spoken word is incredible!
Jeremiah the prophet said, “Ah sovereign Lord, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched hand. Nothing is too hard for You!”2
Whatever your needs are, you have not exhausted His strength and power. Whatever your concerns, you have not run His emotional well dry. Whatever your situation, His hand is not too short to save, provide, lead, and fight for you. Whatever the depth of your offenses against Him, He is not prevented from forgiving, releasing, and drawing near the truly repentant person. Nothing is too difficult for our awesome and powerful God! There is no end to His power to accomplish His saving purposes.
When you approach God today, come with humility and a profound sense of wonder!
Footnote:
1 Robert Wells, Is A Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There is? (Morton Grove, IL; Albert Whitman, 1993).
2 Jeremiah 32:17.
(Greg Herrick graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with the Th.M. in 1994 and the Ph.D. in 1999. Greg and his wife are involved in a church planting ministry near Toronto, Canada. More of Greg’s articles can be found at www.bible.org. )