How Big Is Your Universe?

Scientist tell us that the universe is expanding. I beg to differ; I see it collapsing on everyone!

The size of the universe shrinks according to any activity. A lady behind the wheel of a car may limit her universe to the cars in front of her and everything inside her minivan. Let the cell phone ring and the universe contracts further. Her world disappears into the phone and everything else is outer space. Now, there is nothing beyond the bumper.

The same is true for a man watching his team on Sunday afternoon. His universe collapses around his tv. He is largely unaware of the recliner, how many beers he had downed or whether or not there is a tornado looming outside his house.

We travel from universe to universe and make each one fit within our willingness to observe.

I watched one of the news channels challenge a specific political party's failure to increase the number of people working. The spokesperson would not admit that there were more people unemployed now than there were when they took charge. The person would not admit to the absolute truth of numbers. His universe was limited to saying that everything we have done is right and everything everyone else has done is wrong. I wondered if this was the party of idiots. No, they are depending upon a collapsing universe.

Truth has become believing what others believe. Their strategy is to tell so many people what the universe looks like that their constituents will make this their universe. It won't matter what the real universe looks like. It will be the universe of their party. The strategy is pure genius.

Only a few people really look at the stars. Many who observe the stars only see them as shining flecks in the night sky. Few people know their names, where they are and what galaxy each is in. Most people can't see many of them because they live in cities which prevent them from observing the stars. Thus, the stars are not in their universe.

Many of the very religious people in the New Testament could not accept Jesus. Their universe was limited to their religious teaching. They either had to open their eyes to the possibility of a new universe or they had to deny that it existed. They couldn't live in two universes at the same time.

People are no different today than then. We grow up creating our universe. We decide what things will go in it and what we will reject. We limit it to what we like and what we dislike. We hate being left out of our social groups so we generally accept the known universe of those groups. Sometimes that keeps us out of trouble.

The size of your universe may also keep you from missing things that God has intended for you. It opens up to things we would never have considered. It changes our careers and our home towns. It sends us to do things that we thought we could never do. It is a limitless universe.

Do you want to stay safe within your universe or do you want it to expand exponentially? It is a little scary to think that you can do more than you know you are capable of doing.

It is exciting too!

John 14:12 (NIV) ¹² I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.