How Faint a Whisper

In mid-February I'm traveling to CA to speak at a church retreat. A friend of mine from seminary who is a pastor of a church in San Jose asked me to come. The theme is ELEVATE. My friend's desire is that their church would elevate their view of God in 2008. That, of course, is my hope too for me, my family and the church I get the privilege of pastoring. I must say, though, that is is quite humbling when someone says, "I want you to give five sermons on God. We want our view of God to be elevated." That's a lot of material! I've been working and reading and writing on it for a month already and it's been quite enlightening. And it's also been humbling. Actually, I think a better descriptor would be humiliating, which I think is good.

How is it that one can be a believer for so many years and pastor for several years and yet open the Scripture and say, "I don't even know a tenth of one percent." I can tell you how. It is because God, the God who revealed/s himself in Scripture, the One True God, is holy, magnificent, infinite, immortal and beautiful. I think that Job said it really well when, speaking of God's creating and sustaining powers, says "and these are just the outskirts of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who can understand the thunder of his power?" (Job 26:14).