Significantly Insignificant

“All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.”           

—1 Peter 1:24-25

One thing I love about Scripture is its explicitness. It doesn’t mince words. Instead, it emphatically puts forth truth, unabashedly, in a manner in which we cannot deny its meaning or intent.

And we need that. Straight, to-the-point, undeniable truth—the kind that penetrates the hardest of hearts. Don’t we? Without it, we too easily rationalize it away, side-stepping anything that hints at personal accountability, anything that demands an answer for our wayward actions and attitudes.

All this to say that, without fail, the word of the Lord remains forever. Forever. I don’t know what thoughts this weighty statement impresses upon you, but to me it conveys the limitless power of our God. More than the Lamb of God, it portrays the Lion of Judah—whose sovereign plan comes to pass with full certainty and matchless authority. The world, which is perishable, will soon fade. The Word—never.

Let that sink in. We go about our days anxious of outcomes, worrying whether this or that will come to pass. No doubt that’s a derivative of our inherent fallibility. But God wills His perfect plan and it happens—there is nothing left to happenstance.

I’ll get to my point. Though this world and the life we live within it would never admit it, we are significantly insignificant. Just endeavor to wrap your mind around the size of our galaxy, let alone the vastness of the universe it inhabits. We are small. Tiny, actually. Pay close heed to how the late astronomer and religious skeptic, Carl Sagan, described us, and our planet—he was spot-on:

“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. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

Insignificant—you. And I.

And yet, God, whose word—in all its glory, it all its power—stands forever, cares. He cares for you. He cares for me. He concerns Himself with you, with your problems, with your shortfalls, with your worries and your doubts. And He does the same with me. It’s astounding, if we’d only stop to ponder it.

One would need to look no further than the nighttime sky to grasp how wide and deep and long is the love of the God of the universe—that He would willingly and purposefully sacrifice His own Son for our eternal salvation.

It seems rather silly, then, doesn’t it, to allow our hearts to be filled with distrust? In light of His mighty, enduring word, to let our minds be consumed with disbelief?

Thankfully the God whose word reigns in unending triumph is the same God who readily offers unrelenting grace. To you, and me—significantly insignificant inhabitants on a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam.

Grace to you, to fathom simultaneously the infinite God and His intimate care,

Voice of another