A Speck in a Speck!

Today our speaker challenged us to see the significance of how insignificant we are. This photograph was shown to illustrate this:

Taken nearly 4 billion miles away, if you look carefully, there's a little dot. That dot is earth! If you still can't see it, it's roughly half-way down the sunbeam on the right.

In the words of Carl Sagan, "look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives... [on] a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light."

So, if I'm (along with several billion others) a tiny speck in that miniscule speck, my worries, anxieties, concerns, upcoming exams, are really not that significant in the grand scheme of things, is it? Like, what if I don't do as well as I'd liked to in this upcoming exam? Boo hoo. No wonder God tells us not to worry. There's nothing to worry about, if we're (a speck in that speck)created by this BIG God, who, as the Bible claims, also created that speck and everything in it...by...a few verbal commands. :O But as a speck who gets absorb in that speck, I keep forgetting this, and often think that hey, my problems are too great for this God. But how can they be too great?

Yet, this same BIG God knows me before I was born, and knows me so well to the extent that the hairs on my head are counted. According to the Bible, He loves me (and all the other tiny, tiny, tiny billions of specklings) so much that He would send His Son to come into this speck to die for me, a speckling. A BIG hunble, loving God who was willing to die for the specklings who reject Him, and actually want Him dead. Why? So that if we specklings believe in Jesus, we can spend eternity with our BIG BIG creator. To me, this is mind-blowing.

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have sent in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

the son of man that you care for him? (Ps 8:3-4)

God's love

As I hope this blog would be a source of encouragement and testimony to others, I’d like to share about how God touched my life in the past and continues to do so now…

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is [God’s] love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:11-12).

For many years of my life, I thought I was a morally upright person: a pretty ‘good’ boy. Nope, totally wrong. Quite the opposite, actually! When I compared myself with God's holy standards (revealed to us by the God's Word: the B-i-b-l-e), instead of comparing myself with my own set of dodgy standards, I realised that: hey, I've fallen heaps short of God's holy standards.

Because I had yet to understand God’s great love for me, I became ashamed of Jesus, constantly ignored Jesus by refusing to spend time reading His Word and talking (praying) to Him, and habitually rejected His commands by doing things contrary to His will. For example, I had major problems with pride, lust and deceit. Now these are serious issues according to the Bible. Jesus tells us that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Whoa! To my shame, because I habitually rejected God’s commandments, I was soon a slave to disobedience to God.

A few years ago, I realised that it was decision time. I had two choices: to follow God and do what He says through the Bible, or reject Him altogether. Although I had the desire to follow Him (by obeying Him), the good I wanted to do I could not do, but the evil (any disobedience to God – for eg, lust, not loving, hate) I did not want to do I kept on doing. One day, completely humbled, I asked God to rescue me from the bondage of rejecting Him. He graciously answered my my request, and taught me to overcome this struggle by keeping His Word in my heart. I did so, and it worked! I was in awe of His mighty power and completely overjoyed seeing that I was now free from the stronghold of disobedience to Him.

As a result of experiencing God’s power, God thankfully opened my eyes and I began to understand how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. I stuffed up big time (because of my rejection of Him, rejecting His just commands) and rightly deserved God’s just punishment (that is, eternal separation from Him). However, God loved me (and you) so much that He gave His One and Only Son to take the deserved punishment from me (and you) and that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. How awesome is that!? And so, I believed, and accepted His free gift.

Therefore, I am saved not by anything good I have done nor by my upbringing; rather I am thankful that it is by God’s grace and mercy alone that I am saved, and it is God’s amazing grace and mercy that sustains me now.

I earnestly hope that all of you have (and continues to), or will one day experience the joy of knowing God’s amazing love for us :).

PS. If there's anything I can elaborate, will be glad to do so :).