my God is so big

I've been slowly making my way through chronological readings of the Old Testament and have now reached the book of Daniel. While it contains some spooky and weird stuff, for which I've been getting a bit of interpretation help from a basic commentary, there is one theme that stands out clearly and prominently...

God is powerful.

He shuts the mouths of lions (Dan 6), he can bring the mightiest ruler low (Dan 4), he can even sustain strapping young men on a diet of vegetables (Dan 1)! He rules everyone and everything (Dan 7:11-14).

Sometimes I feel uncomfortable focussing my thoughts on God's power, because I don't want to presume that he will exercise it on my behalf in the ways that I want to prescribe for him. He isn't a magic genie god after all (Dan 3:16-18).

However, it's enormously encouraging to know that God is more powerful than anyone or anything else in the universe. He's more powerful than the people whose approval I crave, he's more powerful than the people who are able to harm me or disrupt my life, he is able to exercise his strength in the situations that I feel hopeless about. Above all, he has exercised his power to save me in Christ (Eph 1:17-21).

What a great gift and privilege it is to know and be able to pray to our powerful God.

Jesus fully God, fully human - Hebrews 1-2

I worked hard on Hebrews 1-2 over last weekend, and was really been struck by just how strongly trinitarian the author is in the way that he (yes, apparently there is a masculine verb in 11:32 - there go my hopes for a New Testament book written by a woman!) uses the Old Testament.

Take for example this quote from Psalm 45:6-7 which was initially written about God's relationship with the Israelite king. The writer to Hebrews applies it directly to Jesus:

"Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions
by anointing you with the oil of joy."

God is the one reigning forever, an attribute that is also ascribed to Jesus (Hebrew 13:8). At the same time God sets Jesus above his companions, anointing him as his special king. So Jesus is God, but he's also distinct from God as God's Son.

In another quote from Psalm 102:25-27 the author of Hebrews takes a passage we may think of as referring only to God the Father, and again applies it directly to Jesus:

“In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

So Jesus is not just redeemer of the world, he is also creator of the world. As the author of Hebrews is at pains to point out, it matters how we treat Jesus - he isn't just some guy, he's the Lord of all creation.

bunnies are just like people: 2nd installment

Today the rabbits escaped from their hutch, again.

The larger of our two bunnies, Honey Bunny, is a kind of bunny Houdini. Today's escape involved a combination of tunneling under the hutch and moving bricks that had been placed to prevent escape! (She looks cute, doesn't she?!)



Getting them back in the hutch before they've had a run around seems unkind to me, so we blocked off the exits to our yard and gave them a lengthy playtime before I returned them to their hutch late this afternoon. However this meant that I had to commit to keeping an eye on them all day.

What the bunnies fail to understand is that we keep them confined for good reasons. There are numerous threats to their safety outside the hutch: cars on the road, mouse poison under the house, a large neighbourhood cat population and a vicious sounding dog that lives next door.

So what tenuous link will I draw between rabbits and us? Well I reckon that the way we relate to God is sometimes a bit like how the bunnies relate to me. The bunnies assume that they know what's best for them, but their knowledge is sadly limited. If they had been allowed to do as they pleased today there is every chance that one or both of them would have met a sticky end.

Sometimes it's hard to understand why God gives Christians particular guidelines for living in the Bible. Some of the commands seem really old-fashioned, and out of step with standards that most other people have.

While I can come up with reasons for most of God's commands to us, there are some where I don't know anything approaching the full story. These commands call for trust and obedience just as much as the ones I can explain do.

The analogy does break down of course, because God is much greater in his love for us than I am in my love for my rabbits (though I most certainly do care for them). Also the difference between God's knowledge and my knowledge is much greater than the difference between my knowledge and that of a fluffy bunny.

I would like it if our bunnies displayed a little more trust and obedience toward us as their owners, after all, we are not nasty killjoys!

How much more should Christians trust and obey our loving, all-knowing Father.