11-6-2022
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways…..For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
I am always trying to comprehend the ways of God, but it’s just not possible with my finite mind. The nuns told us everything will be revealed to us when we get to heaven and I always hoped they were right! I want to know all the secrets of God and the universe, the spirit world and other dimensions. I want to be able to walk through walls or be in two places at once like St. Padre Pio. I have an insatiable curiosity and need to know why things are the way they are, and what will happen in the future. But as they say, “curiosity killed the cat”. This can be dangerous.
I frequently ponder things like: how can God hear us when we are praying silently in our minds? Or how does He hear all the people on earth that are praying simultaneously?? How can He be present in all the tabernacles in the world, and at every Christian gathering, and at the deathbeds of every dying person?
God is supposed to be omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, but all this “omni-” continues to boggle my mind. God is just too enormous for me to grasp.
It is said God exists outside of time, so I can’t even begin to fathom these things, and that is what fuels my doubts and endlessly frustrates me. Faith is based on the unseen and the mysterious, but honestly, this drives me crazy! Out of nowhere Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection and on one occasion He said to the disciple Thomas, “Have you come to believe because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and believed.” (John 20:29)
A friend of mine uses this analogy–we are like ants in comparison to God. Think of how much bigger we are than an ant! The size of our brains alone! Our perspective is so much different from up where we are. People can get on airplanes and travel from one end of the earth to the other. We can birth new human beings into the world. Some of us can make music or paint masterpieces. Others help build skyscrapers and cathedrals, or rockets that soar into space to explore the vastness of the universe. Just because ants can’t do these things doesn’t mean they aren’t possible. But all of this pales in comparison to the magnitude and mind of God. Maybe to God our accomplishments look like the tiny hills of ants that we see. It’s like looking down at the street below from the top of a skyscraper and spotting vehicles that look like tiny Matchbox cars.
Another thing that separates us from ants is that each of us has a soul, the part of us that Christians believe will live on after we die. We are made in the image and likeness of God. “Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)
But notice, we do not have dominion over God, and that is where our earthly problems stem from. We will never be on the same level or have the knowledge of the Creator of the universe. It started in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, all the way through to modern times. Destruction and evil, sin and death, are the results of wanting to be God. Bill Gates and Fauci come to mind, as well as many political leaders now and throughout history. They have caused much needless death and suffering for their own ego, gain and their need to play God. We ultimately are not the ones in charge, though all too many would like to be or act as if they are. It never has a good ending.
So in the meantime, we will have to learn to humble ourselves before the all-powerful Creator of the universe and exercise faith in things unseen. We need to let the Holy Spirit guide us and not the spirit of this age or fallible leaders. We need to allow our minds to be shaped into the mind of Christ and trust that everything will be revealed in the next life, like the nuns indicated. Expecting, that what awaits us for all eternity, will be infinitely greater than anything we could ever imagine because the God of the universe mysteriously loves us.
(1 Corinthians 2:7-10, 16) “Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for, if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love Him, this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.” ….“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.”