Somebody Bigger Than You and I

 

The Ink Spots in 1951, Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1954, and Elvis in 1966 recorded a song attributing  creation, encouragement, and faith to “Somebody Bigger Than You and I,” implying that “Somebody” is the Creator God without ever naming him. I’ve always disliked that song because it demeans and diminishes God to just a wee bit larger than human, as does the once-popular term, The Man Upstairs. When it comes to somebody bigger than you and I, there are a lot of them – Andre the Giant, for one. Lou Ferrigno, Wilt the Stilt, Hulk Hogan. Even Pastor Adam is bigger than I am. (He’s amazing, but not on a God scale.)

 Genesis 1 tells us, “God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also” (v. 16.) The inclusion of the stars seems rather understated. Aswe can understand it with our finite minds and tools, the Milky Way (our galaxy) has maybe 100 billion stars. The number of galaxies is estimated to be between 30 and 70 billion trillion. I can’t even think that. And Scripture tells us the heavens are the work of God’s fingers. (Ps. 8:3.) What did God hang the stars on? Only He knows. You don’t have to be bigger than the Christmas tree to hang ornaments on it, but you do have to be bigger than the ornaments. Or get some help, like from somebody bigger. . . But God didn’t get help hanging the stars. Who would He call?

Ps. 139 asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” It’s not that God is chasing us around so He can be there as soon as we get there, but that He is everywhere all at the same time, in all and through all.

 “Measuring” is both a gift and a limitation of being human. We want and need to measure everything physical by size, weight, number, temperature, frequency, speed, density. But God doesn’t fit into any category we can think of. It isn’t just that God is bigger in size than anything we can understand, it’s that He can’t be ​measured at all by any measure we can comprehend. He may not be big; he may not be small. He doesn’t seem concerned with how we view His size; He seems to emphasize, all through Scripture, His power. This is something we can better recognize, though we cannot measure it. He made the entire universe in less than a week. We CAN recognize that, if we will. The account of creation, including the sun, moon and stars, is about His power, not His size. He can heal sick or injured people completely in an instant, not requiring six weeks of rehab. He can stop a sea from running and make the walls of water stand up on either side of dry ground. He can give a dead person life. He can be dead and give Himself life. He can make an eternity of perfection and life and he can give us His righteousness as a gift, so we may enjoy that eternity.

All these things and the many, many more that Scripture relates are expressions of power, not size. God is probably bigger, but infinitely more powerful than you and I. Our God is an awesome God!

--Lynda Shenefield