from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. (Ps 90:2)
his understanding has no limit. (Ps 147:5)
I am God Almighty. (Gen 17:1)
God of all, we acknowledge the immensity of our limitations in comprehending the infinity of who you are. Help us to quietly adore and to allow you to be who you are.
In high school I worked a couple summers in the mountains of Colorado. I will never forget those summers and the powerful beauty of the Rockies. One night, the guys in my cabin decided it would be fun to sleep on the roof. We took our blankets up there and froze, and because it was so cold, I didn’t get any sleep. I, thus, spent the entire night gazing at the heavens. The stars on a clear night at 10,000 feet are a spectacle to behold. Galaxies spread out before your eyes, and the quiet beauty penetrates your soul. Deeply. You feel small in the presence of such an expanse. The heavens really do declare the glory of God (Ps 19:1).
That night on the roof, I got a glimpse of a small portion of the universe. The universe is immense, but the universe is finite. It may be expanding, but it has an end. In fact, if it has no end, it cannot expand. To God, the universe is like an atom, a little neutron, so small you can hardly see it under a microscope. You must understand. God is infinite.
When people encounter infinity, the proper reaction is something like, “Oh my!” We cannot grasp it. It is beyond us. The human mind may be marvelous and mysterious, but it is limited, and one of the great mistakes people make about God is that they think He is limited too. Too often we put our parameters around God. We somehow think He is like us. This thinking disrobes God of His divinity. A god smaller than our minds is not God. The real God has no boundaries.
This does not mean that God’s love can behave unlovingly or His justice be unjust or His holiness sin. Rather, it means that when God acts in a fashion consistent with His nature, His love and justice and all the rest have no bounds. This aspect of God boggles us, for everything around us has boundaries — including the universe. Truly, we do not understand infinity. We may say we do, and we may have a limited idea of what it is, but our idea is at best a nod of the head or more likely a boast like that of an eight-year-old claiming to understand the mysteries of quantum mechanics. The infinity of God is a statement of His incomprehensibility If God is infinite He cannot be fully understood. But the church has often replaced God with a god it can understand. Tozer puts it well:
“The God of Abraham has withdrawn His conscious presence from us, and another God whom our fathers knew not is making himself at home amongst us. This God we have made and because we have made him we can understand him; because we have created him he can never surprise us, never overwhelm us, nor astonish us, nor transcend us.” (p.43).
Infinity should give birth to humility. No matter how great our intelligence, riches, strength or influence, how deep our love, or how pure our life, when we put these things next to God we are empty. The infinity of God precludes our ever coming before Him as if we are the big man on campus. And yet we can humbly take heart, for the love He has for us never ends, the wisdom ordering the events around us is limitless, the power fighting for our good cannot be overcome, and His faithfulness to His people will never be betrayed. We cannot outsin His mercy or outrun His grace. We cannot thwart His justice or defile His purity. We cannot stump or stop infinity. No power or force or plot or deceit can conquer infinite sovereignty. Every attribute of God is colored by His infinitude. His knowledge is infinite. His riches are infinite. His power is infinite. His love, His purity, His faithfulness, His mercy, His justice. All of these are infinite.
We can never grow tired of God. The beauties and marvels of the Majestic One are forever inexhaustible. After we have worshipped in heaven for a million milleniums, we will still find new aspects of the infinite God to revel in. Eternity in glory will not exhaust the infinitude of God. Behold your God. But truly you cannot behold Him.
