What does it for you?

This week I asked the question on air, what does it for you?  What anchors you in your Christian faith?

It's something I'm glad I have an answer to.  For me, it's nature.  I can't look around me, look at the intricacies of my body, look at how absolutely massive the universe is, and think that it's an accident.  And that thought keeps me rooted in my faith.

I'm sure there will be some who read this who think, "That's crazy!  It should be your faith, or that Christ died on the cross, or your personal experiences with God that root you in your faith!"  I wish it was that simple for me.  I'm that guy who questions everything - which is both a blessing and a curse.  It's hard for me to use any of those as my anchoring point.  For me it starts with nature, knowing that there had to be divine inspiration behind everything we see and don't see around us...that keeps me rooted and allows me to grow my relationship with Christ.

For those of you who are nature geeks like me, or want an example of what I'm talking about, my small group is working through a series on creation by Louie Gigglio, and it is fantastic.  One thing he talked about is the size of the Milky Way Galaxy.  If it were the size of North America, then our solar system would be the size of a quarter in comparison.  Think about that!  Craziness!  And then to think that ours is just one of literally countless of other galaxies out there (thousands, millions, BILLIONS)?  And each galaxy has billions of stars!! And each galaxy is thousands/billions of light years away!!!  Okay, I see I'm losing you.  Think about it this way - light travels around earth 7.5 times in one second, and 5.88 trillion miles a year.  If another galaxy is 16 million light years away for ours...well you do the math on how huge the universe is...  And then finally, to think that God holds the universe in his hand (Isaiah 40:12)....  Yep, my mind is blown again.

So back to my question - what does it for you?

Hurricane Sandy

The past week I've been watching a lot on Hurricane Sandy.  It's been tragic to see the damage and destruction caused, and yet it's left me in awe.

It's funny how we think we have it all together.  We think we've come so far with our infrastructure, our technology, our weather-predicting systems, our safeguards, our advanced systems and thinking and buildings and procedures.  We have it all under control.

Then a hurricane hits.

Something WAY beyond our control, that no matter how much we've planned and prepared for, we have absolutely no chance against.  It takes us years, decades, to plan infrastructure and create streets and buildings and neighbourhoods and get everything just how we want it.  Then a hurricane/earthquake/ tsunami/tornado hits and those decades of hard work are washed away in seconds, and we realize how truly infinitesimal we really are.  And that while we delude ourselves into thinking we have an ounce of control over anything, the truth is that have absolutely none.

And then...think about it in the larger scale.  The amount of destruction that a hurricane does - and realizing that a hurricane covers maybe 1/10 of the earth's surface at a time, which means the earth is SO much larger.  And the earth is tiny compared to other planets.  And it's a dot in our solar system.  And it's a grain of sand in the milky way galaxy.  And it's a spec of dust (if even) when realizing that there are millions of galaxies, each with millions of stars and planets.

And the hurricane that caused all that damage is 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000...1% the size of our universe.

And we were blown away by the hurricane.  We are tiny.