The Long Look

There seems to be little evidence that the Creator of the universe was ever in a hurry. Everywhere, on this bounteous and beautiful earth, and to the farthest reaches of the firmament, there is evidence of patient purpose and planning and working and waiting. This is a point to remember when we become too impatient with our own personal problems, or with the great unanswered questions that are in the minds of most of us.

And when our troubles trouble us too much, when our lives become too tense, it would be well to take time for a long lookout into the infinite and awesome vastness of the universe perhaps a billion light years away, which is presently possible across “worlds” that can’t be counted in sight of “suns” that can’t be numbered into space that can’t be contemplated by the mortal mind of man. “And any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power.”

Everywhere there is evidence of long, unhurried plan and pattern and purpose, of intelligence and continuous creation, and of the Creator which makes one ask in all earnestness: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” He must be important in the infinite plan and purpose or he wouldn’t have the intelligence and the opportunities he has. And he is important so much so that the Lord God made man in “his own image,” and has set before him limitless and everlasting possibilities.

And yet here on this pinpoint planet, the most penetrating mind among us has profound reason to feel small and humble and repentant for with all our brilliance and accomplishment (and stupidity) we are only children on the shore of an eternal sea.

With all we know (or think we know) there is infinitely much that we must leave to time including some of our troubles and some of our sorrows, some of our unsolved problems, and some of our unsatisfied questions. And a long look at the endless, orderly plan and purpose of the Father of us all may make some of the petty and passing things appear not so important as they have sometimes seemed. And when we find ourselves in conflict and confusion, we can well afford to wait a while for all the evidence and all the answers that now evade us.

Thank God for a glorious and interesting world, for truth, and for “infinity,” and for “eternity” in which to find it and for faith, and assurance in the limitless and everlasting future.