Just when you think you have an idea of the greatness of the Creator of the universe, this same God demonstrates His glory by lovingly revealing how you have nothing near a glimpse, a smidgen of who He is.
In other words, you may think you have a grasp of God, but in His own gentle way, He tells you, ‘you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.’
Fancy Jewelry
The very first grandson my parents ever had is Aaron, and he is now 10 years old. I’ve watched him from birth to who he is today, and how his words evolved from being unintelligible to random, consistent only in (great) abundance.
On our way to church last Sunday, he asked me in the same random manner: “what did the gems of the Infinity Gauntlet represent?”
I love how Aaron asks questions he already knew the answers to. But in my general fascination towards infinity and eternity, I didn’t just say I didn’t know (as I oftentimes would to blow him off, God forgive me), but I threw the question back at him.
He went on to share that the 6 gems were Power, Space, Time, Soul, Mind, and Reality.
Now this just gave me more ground in my mental expeditions towards understanding infinity and eternity. If you’ve been reading my posts as of late, I only elaborated on infinity as being boundless (limitless Space) and eternal (Timeless)… pretty much covering just 2 of the 6 gems on the Gauntlet.
This God of ours had me amazed enough in my own musings and mental wanderings in the endless vastness of who He is. Because of my nephew’s random question I was reminded that I was nowhere near making a step forward in this expedition of knowing Him.
Exotic Creatures
The book of Daniel speaks of four beasts coming forth from the earth, which are interpreted by a significant number of theologians to represent four corresponding kingdoms: Babylon, Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Roman Empire.
After church last Sunday, Aaron and his Dad (my brother, Pep) had an argument regarding this as the former saw in his ‘Action Bible’. Now Pep was too occupied to give my nephew a complete answer. The conversation ended with tension, as he told my nephew to just leave it alone.
Later in the day I had an opportunity to sit down and talk to my nephew about it. My explanation was not definitive as much as I just wanted to present my perspective, so the issue would not be left as open ended in my good nephew’s mind. I presented how nations and tribes, people groups, states and schools were often represented by animals, and beasts. We came up with the American eagle, the Californian bear, and pondered at how his school was apparently was represented first as owls, then as fish (‘we’re above water, how does that makes sense?’, he asks).
I noticed in the Action Bible that the prophet Daniel went on to say that the Kingdom of God follows, and points out that it cannot be fully represented by an animal or combination or mutation thereof. In light of everything we know (and everything we have YET to know) about our God, I strongly endorse this point.
While I was taking this all in, I was reminded of something that was taught to us years ago. Apparently, it was spoken tradition among the Old Testament Israelites (spanning to ultra-orthodox Jews today) – that they could only but breathe the name of God.
I see it more than just tradition now. I can see that the truth of God’s absolute glory just overwhelms our entire being, the lack of enough words leaving us speechless. Before God’s glory we are brought to our place, creations before our Creator. A little more thought given to the truth of God’s glory can certainly have anyone understanding this thoroughly – that He could not be represented as the rival nations would represent their gods, their power, or their whole identity in created things…
Romans 1:20 states that (God’s) invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. In other words, because His glory is seen in all of creation, and no gem, or no animal – no words, not one thing stands out as worthy to represent all of Him…
Of course, I could be wrong.
(To be continued)
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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