EVERYWHERE, EVERY MOMENT GOD IS INFINITE!

Dear God Seekers!

Those of you who KNOW our family probably also KNOW that when athletic ability was handed out, each of us Addingtons probably had our nose in a good book or had our IPODs turned up too loudly, listening to our great eclectic play lists on shuffle. Alas, we missed the first few physical skills’ distribution rounds! (Thankfully our two sons-in-law have mightily improved the gene pool!)

BUT…I’m going to HUMBLY let you in on a BIG secret: I was pretty decent in racquetball in the OLDEN DAYS! I could even beat the guys from time to time. (And, NO, they did not have one hand tied behind their back!) I had an amazing killer-serve which I have happily passed onto Joel who is actually GOOD in racquetball in the HERE and NOW!!!!

Tennis seems a lot like racquetball, doesn’t it? When playing either game, one uses a medium-sized racquet, firmly hitting a small tangerine-sized, springy ball back and forth between two opponents. So why was it that when I tried tennis, prior to and during my racquetball heyday, that I was spending a lot more time chasing the ball than smashing it powerfully? The answer: NO WALLS! I always seemed to hit the ball too hard, too far.  The four racquetball court walls (plus ceiling!) kept those balls safely contained no matter how well or poorly the ball was whacked. Oh, how I loved those walls!

Whenever I read Ephesians 3:20 I picture tennis courts and soccer fields. Why? I’ll explain.
 

Read this verse noticing the words in bold print:

Now to Him who is able to do
 immeasurably more
than all we can ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.

A few years ago I discovered, in my NIV concordance, that the word IMMEASURABLY in the Greek is hyperekperissos. That word is a compound word and broken down into three other Greek word parts:
Hyper – above, beyond, more than
Ek – out of, away from, extension from a space to a goal outer in reference
Perissos – going beyond, exceeding, full, abundant, more than (Also used in John 10:10 describing our promised “fullness of life!”)

Maybe it doesn’t grab you like it does me, but stopping to look at those compound words impacted me greatly. I was freshly struck by the fact that HE is able to GO OUTSIDE “THE WALLS,” SO FAR OUTSIDE “THE WALLS” THAT I CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE IT!  NO WALL, NO FENCE, NO RESTRICTION, IN FACT, NOTHING REINS HIM IN, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM!

These thoughts make me scurry back to the word INCOMPREHENSIBLE, because HE JUST IS!

Secondly and so gloriously, it also makes me relax! That verse tells me that I can’t even begin to IMAGINE or ASK as big as HE CAN DO AND BE! He is God and I am not!

Thirdly, I am blown away that this infinitely, uncontainable, most holy God chose to make Himself finite as a man, even being nailed to a cross FOR ME! FOR YOU!
 

Thou who was rich, beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake became a man.
Throne for a manger did surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.

 

~~~

EVERYWHERE, EVERY MOMENT GOD IS INFINITE!

~~~

Merriam-Webster Online
INFINITE
1 : extending indefinitely : ENDLESS infinite space
2 : immeasurably or inconceivably great or extensive : INEXHAUSTIBLE <infinite patience>

3 : subject to no limitation or external determination
Attributes of God Chart
INFINITE – NO LIMITS – THE HEAVENS CANNOT CONTAIN

Thesaurus.com
INFINITE
Synonyms - absolute , all-embracing , bottomless  , boundless  , enduring  , enormous , eternal , everlasting , illimitable  , immeasurable , immense  , incalculable  ,  inestimable , interminable  , jillion , measureless  , never-ending  , numberless  , perdurable  , perpetual  , stupendous  , supertemporal , supreme  , total  , umpteen  , unbounded  , uncounted  , unending  , untold  , vast  , wide , without limit  , without number  , zillion
Antonyms – limited, finite
 

~~~

The Bible says:

1 Kings 8:27 – But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built. Yet give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day.

Job 11:7,8 ,9 – Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens – what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave – what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.

Psalm 139:7-10, 17-18, 147:5 – Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you…How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They are innumerable! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand. And when I wake up in the morning, you are still with me…Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

Isaiah 40:12, 55: 8,9 , 66:1– Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? This is what the Lord says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?”

Romans 11:33,34 – Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?
 

He is before all things,
and in Him
all things hold together.
Colossians 1:17

A patchwork prayer from Psalm 139:1, 1 Chronicles 28:9, 1 Corinthians 2:10, Ps. 139:23,24 – Yahweh, you examine me and know me. You, Lord, search every mind, and understand every plan and thought. You, Spirit, search everything, even the depths of God. Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead in the way everlasting.

~~~

Words of Wisdom –
Larry Libby - God is unsearchable, unfathomable, ungraspable, untraceable, uncontainable. In other words, He’s infinite, cloaked in a mantle of storm and fearsome power, and trying to grasp Him with a finite mind is like trying to wire a flashlight bulb into a lightning bolt. The wispy little filaments, designed for the diminutive current of a triple-A battery, just can’t handle a lightning strike.

Richard Foster - We pass from thinking of God as a part of our life, to the realization that we are a part of His life!

Chris Tomlin – He wraps Himself in light and darkness tries to hide and trembles at His voice…How great is our God!
Louis Berkhof - This means that God is not subject to limitations. We can speak of His infinity in more than one sense. Viewed in relation to His being, it may be called His absolute perfection. He is unlimited in His knowledge and wisdom, in His goodness and love, in His righteousness and holiness. Seen in relation to time, it is called His eternity. While this is usually represented in Scripture as endless duration, it really means that He is above time and therefore not subject to its limitations. For Him there is only an eternal present, and no past or future. Viewed with reference to space, it is called His immensity. He is everywhere present, dwells in all His creatures, filling every point of space, but is in no way bounded by space.

Anthony Bloom – Your prayer must be turned inwards, not towards a God of Heaven nor towards a God far off, but towards a God who is closer to you than you are aware.

Babbie Mason –
The One who formed the stars and galaxies, lives inside the heart of me.
Isn’t that just like God?

The One who speaks to the waves and the stormy seas,
quiets every storm in me.
Isn’t that just like God?

The eyes that see a sparrow fall, sees my need before I call.
Isn’t that just like God?

When I question if He even cares, He answers my unspoken prayer.
Isn’t that just like God?

Charles Spurgeon - No chorus is too loud, no orchestra too large, no psalm too lofty for the lauding of the Lord of Hosts... Song should be founded upon search; hymns composed without thought are of no worth, and tunes upon which no pains have been spent are beneath the dignity of divine adoration. Yet when we meditate most, and search most studiously we shall still find ourselves surrounded with unknowable wonders, which will baffle all attempts to sing them worthily. The best adoration of the Unsearchable is to own Him to be so, and close the eyes in reverence before the excessive light of His glory. Not all the minds of all the centuries shall suffice to search out the unsearchable riches of God; He is past finding out; and, therefore, His deserved praise is still above and beyond all that we can render to Him.

A. W. Tozer - In olden days men of faith were said to walk in the fear of God [with] the conception of God as awesome…. This idea of God transcendent runs through the whole Bible.

Thomas Le Blanc - God is so great, that till Christ revealed the Father, Deity was lost in its own infinity to the perception of men. He who attempts to navigate an infinite ocean must come back to his starting point, never being able to cross. So the ancient philosophers, disputing as to the Divine Nature, were baffled by their own ingenuity, they had to confess that they comprehended nothing of God except that he was incomprehensible. Without Christ, men can only find out about God that they can never find him.

Rob Bell – Truth always leads to more truth…Truth is insight into God and God is infinite and God has no boundaries or edges.
 

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The weekly God communiqué continues to be tasty fodder for me on my prayer and meditation journey. Stopping to “chew the cud” has come more naturally. (You may remember my confession of gagging at times on the massive amounts of GOD being sumptuously served up! A wonderful problem!) Along the way I have found myself being challenged and truly longing to do one thing in particular: Be more silent in His presence. Listen. Stop talking!

A couple of weeks ago I drove for a solid four hours alone to catch a plane. After making a number of phone calls, listening to a lesson by Ravi Zacharias, and enjoying some incredible worship music, I decided to just spend the last hour in prayer, listening, meditating. It was a challenge! I couldn’t do it. I just kept thinking of another person to call. I struggled to keep my random thoughts from straying and distracting me. I couldn’t do it. I don’t know about you, but I want to grow bigger ears for hearing God and I want to rest comfortably, peacefully, quietly with Him, stilled like the weaned child in Psalm 131.

In Invitation to Solitude and Silence, Ruth Barton writes – We are a very busy, wordy, and heady faith tradition. Yet we are desperate to find ways to open ourselves to our God who is, in the end, beyond all our human constructs and human agendas….We are starved for mystery, to know this God as One who is totally Other and to experience reverence in his presence…We are starved for quiet, to hear the sound of sheer silence that is the presence of God himself.
 

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Along these lines, listen to what one peer wrote in response to the communiqué one week:

The times I am guilty of putting God in a box directly correlate with the little time I am spending in prayer and in His Word.  I find myself during those times, fearful, full of worry and sure God must somehow need my help in fixing the problem.  In contrast, when I am reading and meditating on His words I am overwhelmed, completely in awe and confident that HE is BIGGER than any conceivable problem or trial that I am facing or will face.  And absolutely sure, HE will work it for my good and all I have to do is rest in it ( during those times I am in full armor ready for battle).  I know for me consistency is the answer because this wandering heart is easily distracted and would run into battle with a bb gun!!

I want to be like one friend from last summer’s Bible study, who in the some of life’s darkest days basically said, “God is so close to me right now that you couldn’t even get a tissue between Him and me!!!!!!!! I wouldn’t trade that.”

~~~
 

Boundless, Inexhaustible Loving Lord, please help me take the time to ponder how immeasurable YOU ARE! Help me see YOU in things so small, so minute, that no one else knows but YOU AND ME… and in things so big that YOU are like a mirage in the far distance making me squint! Help me relax totally IN YOUR INFINITE WAYS!
Amen.

Feeling smaller but safer,
Sue

P.S.

PONDERINGS ALONE OR WITH OTHERS –

• How young were you when you first remember hearing about what infinity meant in regard to lines in your mathematics class? How did you feel then about the concept? How do you feel now?
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• Does it give you more or less confidence to think of God working outside the boxes of normal thinking and observation?
  
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• If God works outside the box what do you think Scripture tells us the reason for the box is? (Think: law, seasons, promises)
  
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• Have you ever thought of the cross as being a showing of God’s choosing to be finite for us? Why is this so powerful and gracious and unbelievable?
  
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• How can meditating on our Immeasurable, infinite God affect your living in the dailies?
  

FYI - Some of the varied and rich books I’ve camped in recently are: Prayer- Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard Foster, People in Prayer by John White, Papa Prayer by Larry Crabb, PRAYER: Does it Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Barton.