“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” (1 Timothy 3:16)
One evening, when my middle child was fifteen, he came up the basement stairs at a fast clip, very excited about something he had just seen. It seems he was shooting ball when he spotted a slim stream of ants coming from a small crevice beside the concrete court. The exodus was getting wider and longer. Going where? On a whim, he followed the little soldiers, and followed…and followed…
He told me how they marched on and on, making grand detours for no apparent reason, until they disappeared en masse into a miniature canyon in the field behind our house. He was so animated that I decided to see for myself.
He showed me where the small battalion trickled from the crack, and together we weaved in and out, round and round, to where thousands, perhaps millions, were vanishing beneath the earth. As we backtracked toward the house, I picked up a small stick and put it in their path. It was if they hardly even noticed the obstacle. We bent down so close that they should have felt our breath as we tried to corral them with the stick, and yet, they just kept on their detour-ridden journey.
In amazement, I said to my son, “We’re too big. They can’t even see us.”
There was a time when God was too big for us to see. Immense. Infinite. Immeasurable. He watched us on our hopeless journey, knowing that we were making it much more arduous than necessary. He intervened in the lives of mankind time after time, often coming so close that we should have felt His Breath through prophets, angels and theophanies.
Still, He remained too big for us to perceive, until the day that He became small. God became man. Suddenly, Visible. Tangible. Knowable.
If I could have stepped into that miniature world and taken on the form of an ant, they could have seen me. They could have perceived me. They could have come to know, trust and even love me. They could have understood I was working for their good.
But why would I do such a thing? Unimaginable. Unthinkable. Inconceivable. Yet, exactly what our omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent Creator did when…
God became small for me. (1 Timothy 3:16) Share on XWarm Regards, -Pat
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Awesome read!! We sometimes have to have things made small for us to understand or even imagine. I have been taught about God all of my life. How big and great and marvelous he is. And even though I believed in him I’m not sure I really believed him. I went through life believing he was always there, always present but I never really felt him until I begin to seek him. Then, The Great I Am made himself “small” for me. Oh, what an awesome feeling!! Thank you for your words.
Yes! It’s overwhelming to think how He bridged the gap between His glory and our humanity. Thanks for reading and sharing your heart.