Finding Comfort Mfano

Greater Than You Can Imagine

Isaiah 40:18-26

"With whom, then, will you compare God? To what image will you liken him? As for an idol, a metalworker casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A person too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot; they look for a skilled worker to set up an idol that will not topple.

Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff."

“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

When we experience something extraordinary, we often find it hard to explain. So we use comparisons… which often fall short. It’s like trying to explain the grandeur and scale of the Grand Canyon to someone who’s never been there.  

With God there’s a unique challenge: There is nothing to which you can compare Him.  

Nothing a human can make is comparable to Him. He lives in a dimension that is infinite and beyond anything we can imagine. The vastness of the universe is what He inhabits. And the most powerful forces on earth… well, He merely blows a puff of air on them and they wither.  

The point: God cannot be reduced to our understanding because there is nothing to which you can compare Him. This is the essence of His holiness. He is completely set apart from anything you and I can understand.

That’s what makes the final verses of this passage so powerful… 

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.

You can have confidence in God as a God of comfort because He alone holds the universe together by His “great power and mighty strength.” In fact, Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Jesus, “upholds the universe by the word of his power (ESV).”

Just by His word.

His power is so immense that not one of the trillions and trillions of the starry hosts (each of which He has given a name) ever goes missing.

That is the God who has you wrapped in His arms. That is the God who has you close to His heart. That is the God who is your comfort. He is far beyond anything you know or understand.  

Pause for a moment right now to be still and quiet before God. Rest in the truth that He holds all things together just by the word of His power. And that His “great and mighty power” is what has hold of you in this moment.