attributes of God - immensity

Hey everyone!  I think I'm going to start a new kind of series that talks about certain attributes of God.  I thought it would be good for this season of my life because in the women's Bible study at my church, we're now going through The Attributes of God by A. W. Tozer.  Tozer is such an incredible author.  He's like Elisabeth Elliot (who, as I constantly rave about, is my favorite author) in his eye for the beauty in God's world, and joy in God and bluntness in bringing it forth.  I hope you enjoy this series!

Last Friday we had our second study going through The Attributes of God and were talking about God's immensity.  I love studies like that, where we're basically just talking about how amazing God truly is.  I especially love when creation is brought up and all that He has made.  To me, those are the things that most clearly tell of how immense God is.  As Tozer says in talking about this:

We think that the sun is very large with its planets circling around it. But if you study astronomy--even elementary astronomy--you will learn that there are suns so large that each one could absorb our sun, all of its planets, and all of the satellites that revolve around those planets into itself.  They say that there are suns that are so large you could put millions of our suns into them.  I give up.  I don't even try to understand it.
   Then there is space.  I don't think space is a thing; I think it is just a way we have of accounting for different positions in the vast universe.  We call it distance.  We know they don't measure it.  If it's the moon they say 250,000 miles or if it's the sun they say 93 million miles.  But after that they start talking in light years.  They say that there are bodies millions of light years away--say 10 million just to get a start.  So if you want to know how far it is from earth to that body I'm talking about, you multiply 5 trillion, 862 billion, 484 million by 10 million.  Doesn't that stun you?  It makes my head ache!  Seen over against this, you and I are terribly small.

I just loved learning about God's immensity this past week.  He is so incredible (Job 26:5-14).

Lastly, I want to include a poem that was in the chapter that really helps remind me how big God is.

O Fast and Gone,

How great is God,

How small am I,

A mote in the illimitable sky,

And lets the glory deep and wide and high

Of heaven's unclouded sun,

Ne'er to forget myself forevermore,

Lost, swallowed up in love's immensity.

The sea that knows no sounding and no shore,

God only there, not I,

Nor nearer than I am to myself can be

Art Thou to me.

So have I lost myself in finding Thee.

The boundless heaven of Thine eternal love

Around me and beneath me and above

In glory of that golden day,

The former things are passed away,

Aye, passed away.

-- Gerhard Tersteegen