HOW BIG IS GOD?

This is an interesting question and one that gives me a headache if I think too much about it. Trying to “guesstimate” God’s approximate size is like trying to pinpoint the birth date of eternity. If I want to frustrate myself, I try to figure out where and when God came into being.

How big is God? Wasn’t that a popular Southern gospel song years ago? Yes, it was! I believe one of the very first times I heard that song was at a Blackwood Brothers Quartet Concert that Carol and I attended in Denver back in the days when almost all TV sets were black and white. In other words, before a bunch of you were born. Big John Hall was the bass singer for the Blackwoods and he stole the show when he began to sing, with his booming bass voice, “How big is God?”

There is a fascination with trying to comprehend God in human terms. It’s understandable and yet at the same time limiting to us. When we say “big” in our normal frame of reference, we tend to think in terms of the size of people or buildings or a mountain. When we say, “That’s a big problem,” we are making reference to its seriousness, not necessarily its size.

Isaiah 40:12 gives us a different perspective on the bigness and greatness of God.

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
Measured heaven with a span
And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?
Weighed the mountains in scales
And the hills in a balance?

I love the illustration that Bruce Ware uses in his book Big Truths for Young Hearts as he tells of trying to teach his young daughters about the greatness of God. While on vacation in Oregon, Bruce took his two girls to the beach. At water’s edge, looking out over the Pacific Ocean, Ware asked them to stand close to the shoreline. He walked several steps out into the water and asked the girls to watch carefully as he scooped up a handful of water. The girls’ attention was riveted on their dad as he dipped his hand into the ocean and lifted it for them to see.

He then asked his daughters this question, “Did the level of the ocean go down when I took out a handful of water?”

“No, Daddy,” both girls replied, “nothing happened!”

Ware repeated the experiment with the girls and the result and their response was the same.

A few minutes later Ware talked to his girls about this verse (Isaiah 40:12) and explained that our God is big beyond our understanding and is capable of holding all the water on the earth in the palm of His hand, leaving the oceans, the lakes and the rivers completely dry. Now that is big!

Isaiah 40:12 carries on with the description of God’s bigness as it says that God can measure the size of the universe by using the span of his hand. A span refers to the distance from the end of the thumb to the tip of the little finger of a spread hand. If I really spread my fingers wide, the span of my hand is about nine inches. One of God’s hands is sufficient to measure the extent of the universe. Now that is big!

Not only does the verse pictorially assist us in understanding God’s bigness but it also ties in a reference to His strength. The word picture of “weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance” is the picture of a God whose bigness and strength is so immense that He could weigh all the mountains of the world holding the scales in His hands. That is strength beyond understanding.

How big is God? He is big beyond comprehension and yet He has made Himself available to His people!

He has expressed His love by giving His Son so that you and I can enjoy the grandness of eternity with Him. Now that’s a BIG God with a BIG heart!

We have a big God who has a big love for His people. When we are struggling to overcome a temptation, a problem, a worry, it is worthy to remind ourselves that we serve a BIG God who extends a BIG grace to us. Paul could say, “His grace is sufficient,” because it’s a big grace coming from a big God!