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My
husband and I were driving to Nebraska for a football game. I was at
the wheel. A pickup pulling an enclosed trailer passed me. On the back
of the trailer was written SIOUXLAND RACING PIGEON CLUB.
My first thought was, You’ve
got to be kidding. My second thought was more gracious. A
racing pigeon club? Really? How exactly does one get interested in such
a thing? As opposed to...quilting clubs, travel clubs, antique car
clubs, ski clubs, or traveling nearly four hours every time there’s a
Saturday football game at our alma mater?
There’s a club for every
interest and an interest in every club, hobby, sport, or diversion.
There are also over 900,000 varieties of insects in the world, 400,000
different plants, and at least as many varieties of chocolate (or is
that simply a personal wish?)
Is this volume of variety really
necessary?
Obviously, yes. To quote a line
from the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: “God
loves wondrous variety.”
For God made each and every
class, order, family, genus, and species. He created them, “And God saw
that it was good” (Gen. 1:21b).
Later that day as my husband and
I sat in the football stadium among 85,000 of our closest friends, I
looked across the crowd and tried to see individuals, each with
distinct qualities, talents, hopes, dreams, and destinies. God created
each one with a unique purpose. He wants to know each one on a personal
basis, and longs to hear their prayers—and answer them. It’s estimated
that 106,456,367,669 people have ever lived. (I love the audacity of
the “9” at the end of this number.) That’s a lot of variety, that’s a
lot of unique purposes, that’s a lot of Divine attention to detail.
That’s a lot of Divine love,
over a lot of years.
Such numbers are unfathomable—to
us. But not to Him. “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends:
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are
like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).
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We
don’t understand the need for
this vast amount of variety, but God does. I truly believe there is a
reason for each insect, each flower, each person.
Isaiah
40:28 says it wonderfully: “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The
LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He
will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.”
And yet accepting this variety,
pondering the immensity of it, marveling in it, we can also marvel in
that there is only one God. One
Christ Jesus: the way, the truth, and the light. One who is the great I
AM (Ex. 3:14).
So during this season to be
thankful, take a moment to look around your world—which is the same yet
different from my world. Take note of the wondrous variety; be awed by
it; remember our one God who created it all, and allow yourself a sweet
indulgence to feel special.
And very, very blessed.
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