Dear God, I know I talked about this a week or two ago, but I just saw this shirt video about the age of the universe and I couldn’t help but think about it again. As humans, we really don’t like to know. When we speak of and identify the idols in our lives, we should always start with ourselves.
People were really angry when Covid first came on the scene and we didn’t have adequate tests or testing capacity. We don’t like there being something we don’t know or can’t figure out. Then we got the vaccine, but it wasn’t perfect. It had some isolated side effects. That made us angry too. We should be smart enough and developed enough to not have to worry about these things. Our intellect and economy—even our government and military—replaced you as the things we really put our faith in. That’s what we lean on for peace in our hearts.
Then there are the atheists who insist you aren’t there and all of this can be explained through nature, as if you aren’t the author of the nature they are discovering. I wonder if it comes down to the idea that if they acknowledge you are there then they have to deal with you at some level. They have to reckon with you, and they can’t allow themselves to do that.
Father, as I know and embrace some of these people, help me to let them see you through my life. Make me your ambassador. And also help me to identify the remaining idols in my life, identify them specifically, and then purge them as I love you with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.
22 So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, 23 for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.
Acts 17:22-23
Dear God, I heard a sermon on this passage this morning. Of love the idea that Paul used this as his entry into the intellectuals in Athens at the time. They thought they were so smart. They made themselves feel better about themselves by leaning into intellectualism. In this way, their gods were subject to them because they had created them. Yes, they had gods to which they ascribed power, but these were gods their minds created. These gods needed the people of Athens to survive because they only existed in their minds.
But Paul points out the one that even their intuition has told them they haven’t figured out. The one that explains the unexplainable. The one they didn’t create and don’t know. It’s quite a beautiful story.
Last night, I saw a short video with an astrophysicist talking about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and what it has shown us in less than 18 months of operation.
Astrophysicists have determined that, of course with no involvement of you at all, the universe in which we live is 13.8 billion years ago. But the JWST is showing us fully developed galaxies bigger than our own that were that big that long ago. So things must be much older than they thought. As one scientist put it, it’s upsetting the applecart. The faith they’ve put in their knowledge and the certainty they have that you are not necessary for any of this to happen astounds me. It seems to my limited mind that the “belief” they have in their theories requires even more faith than it takes for me to believe in you because you are the same yesterday, today, and forever, and the god of their own mind is constantly coming up short.
I guess I’m saying all of this because I am grateful that you are not unknown to me. I don’t understand you, to be sure, but I know you. I know you’re there. I know some of what you’ve done for me, although there is much I cannot see. I don’t know what you are doing or what you will do, but I trust you. I’ve seen enough evidence to know that it doesn’t have to all work out for me in order for me to know you are in control and working all things for your good. My role is to submit myself to you and let you use me as much as possible to enable your kingdom to come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven as much as possible.
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, thank you. Thank you that you didn’t have to recalculate your understanding of the universe when the JWST discovered new data. Thank you that you are patient with us as we fumble around and try to prove how smart we are, all the while proving how little we know. Thank you for being patient with me as I struggle to make sense of my life in the midst of trying to let go of understanding it and simply loving you. Thank you for everything you mean to me. And now please prepare me as I head back to work tomorrow after my vacation. Help me to tie into you so that you will be my only God.
I pray all of this dependent upon your grace and in submission to your will,
Emails to God 