Something to Ponder

I finished the fourth travelling pants book, now i am on to Searching For God Knows What.

In the book Donald Miller writes of when he was in high school he told God he doesn't exist- this is from later in Searching For God Knows What, by Donald Miller-
"I remember seeing that made-for-TV miniseries with Shirley MacLaine called Out on a Limb. There's a part in the movie where Shirley MacLaine goes for a walk on a beach and starts twirling around, saying 'I am God, I am God, I am God,' right there in the waves. I heard a lecture by novelist Frank Peretti in which he wondered what that must have sounded like to God. He leaned up to the microphone and squeaked out, in a very little voice, 'I am God, I am God, I am God.' He got a big laugh out of that from the audience. What he was saying was that Shirley MacLaine's voice must have sounded very small to God, on account of she was standing way down on earth on a beach, twirling around."
"I can understand why somebody would think they were God, though. In the first moments after I wake up, especially in the winter when I have left the windows open, I am quite taken aback by my existence; my hands, my eyelids, the feel of my feet rubbing against the blanket. In moments like this, I get the feeling that life is a great deal more complex than I am able to understand. I feel in these moments that I am fairly intricate and amazing; a speaker for a mouth, two cameras for eyes, sticks for legs, a computer for a head, a million sensors in a million places. I could see how somebody would think they were a god; but I could also see how somebody would think that person was a nut too. If you are a god and I am a god, we are all gods and then the whole thing just gets boring."
"I tell you all this only to say I came back to God. All the complexity about life was begging for an explanation; and me actually being god wasn't answering very many questions. And so in a way, i left the old god of easy answers, the god who was always wanting me to be rich or wanting my country to be better than other countries or, for that matter, for me to be better than you. I left that god the preachers talk about on television and politicians mention in their prayers. But I left room open for another God, a God who might explain my existence, explain the complexity of my hands and feet and feelings and the very strange and mysterious fact that even as I type this i am breathing."
"I confess, I feel there is a God who is very big and who understands everything. In the morning, when i get over these little moments of epiphany about how complex my construction is i begin to fear the God that is, because He made all this that is our existence and He understands its physics. Whatever it is that understands the physics of this thing that is happening to us would have to be quite remarkable, with giant oaks for feet, perhaps, and a voice like wind through a forest and a mind that creates creations of which it might ponder in a way of learning what it already knows. I start to think about this and i confess, it stirs a certain fright and it helps me believe the Scripture that teaches His ways are not like our ways."
"I realize it isn't a big deal to fear God these days, but i do. By that i don't mean i have just a deep respect for Hom or a healthy appreciation for Him; I actually get a general sense of terror. It isn't because i think He is a bad guy, because i don't. The sense of terror comes more from the idea that He is so incredibly other, has claimed He has created a kind of afterlife for people, has been born and will never die and doesn't exactly live in space. A God who is that different, that other, can tell you again and again He loves you and you are still going to be quite a bit afraid, just because of what it feels like when you think about His nature."
"I say all this because the other side of what Shirley MacLaine was doing on that beach isn't funny. From God's perspective, looking down at this squeaky voice going off about how she is God is pretty funny, but the other side, the side that knows how very large God is, he He has no end, gives me a start something terrible. And i wounder what it sounded like to God when Jerry Falwell went on television and said the reason the twin towers were hit by those planes was because there were homosexuals in the building. I wonder what kind of annoying squeak that was in God's ear. I don't think a person who makes statements like that fears God. I don't think people like this respect God when He says to love your brother, love your enemy, turn the other cheek, don't judge lest you be judged, be patient, be kind, hold your tongue and give every effort to keep the bonds of peace. Sometimes, honestly, I feel that squeaky-wheeled Christian leadership can be as wrong about God as Shirley MacLaine. I don't think they actually fear Him or think He means what he says."
"I was pleased to discover the God of Scripture is much larger than this. Everybody who met God in the Bible was afraid of Him. People were afraid of even the angels, so the angels always had to calm people down just to have a conversation. I would think that would be very annoying if you were an angel, always having to settle people down just to talk. It makes you wonder if the first thousand years in heaven will have us running around screaming like we would during an earthquake, the whole time God saying to us in an enormous booming voice, Calm down, calm down, will you, it's just Me."
"If you ask me, the way to tell if a person knows God for real, i mean knows the real God, is that they will fear Him. They wouldn't go around making absurd political assertions and drop God's name like an ace card, and they wouldn't be making absurd statements about how God wants you to be rich and how if you send in some money to the ministry God will bless you. And for that matter, they wouldn't be standing on a beach shouting about hew they are God, twirling around in the waves. It seems like, if you really knew the God who understands the physics of our existence, you would operate a little more cautiously, a little more compassionately, a little less like you are the center of the universe."