1 Kings 18:38-39

Then fire from the Lord fell from the sky. It consumed the offering, the wood, the stones, and the dirt, and licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they threw themselves down with their faces to the ground and said, “The Lord is the true God! The Lord is the true God!”

Exodus 14:29-31

But the Israelites walked on dry ground in the middle of the sea, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. So the Lord saved Israel on that day from the power of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore of the sea. When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, they feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

Joshua 6:15-16, 20

On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city! … When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.

“My God is so big,

So strong and so mighty,

There’s nothing my God cannot do (clap, clap)”

Thus goes the children’s Sunday School song. I grew up learning this song, I learned the actions, I sang it with great gusto. I taught this song in Sunday Club when I was a uni student. On beach mission, I led the singing during beach services - and this was one of our sure-fire crowd pleasers!

Matthew 10:28-30

Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. Even all the hairs on your head are numbered.

Matthew 19:13-14

Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

God is continually bothered by the big things. He has a say through His mighty works. Yet He's also continually preoccupied with the smallest of things - even the youngest child, made in the image of God, matters to Him.

Each one of us has been personally called back into relationship with Him - a relationship so important that He gave up His beloved son, Jesus, to bear our sin, so we could be restored in our relationship with the God of the universe.

The God who created everything that ever existed wants you and me to know Him intimately, in the deepest of love relationships we could ever know - and the beauty of how He created us is that we are responsive - to choose yes or no to that invitation.

He is so BIG ...

... that a fire becomes so hot it consumes everything on Elijah’s altar, soaked in gallons of water, so that there is absolutely nothing left.

He is so BIG ...

... that the sea will open to make a dry path for His people to escape.

He is so BIG ...

... that a fortified city wall crumbles because a cacophony of trumpets sounds in His name.

He is so BIG ...

... yet nothing happens to earth’s smallest creatures that He does not know about. He knows how many hairs are on our head (less for me today, than yesterday!) and He honours the youngest as much as He does those in the highest places of ruling in the world.

I say yes to the invitation He offers. I’m only just starting to understand how big He is -

I need to know more.

Let’s share some stories about how BIG God really is.

Shalom.

Principally Thinking

'Act justly, love kindness, and walk humbly with God'

Issue 12 · 30 Aug 2023

In this issue