Powerful people think on a grand scale. When generals deploy troops, they don’t pick individual soldiers, they send off battalions and brigades. Presidents and prime ministers don’t comb through every local newspaper to assess the state of their countries. They look at larger trends through broader reports and tools like GDP figures and unemployment statistics. If anyone tried to manage a country or an army or a business by attending to every detail, he would not have nearly enough time to take care of all the problems within his purview. In his imbalance he would lose sight of the whole and fail as a leader. Consequently–and fittingly–powerful people do not concern themselves with you or me on a personal level.

Now, God is all-powerful. And the power of the most commanding people in history bears nothing in comparison. Alexander the Great conquered Persia, but God laid the foundations of the earth. Julius Caesar turned Rome into an empire, but God set the stars on their course. Charles Martel saved France, but God saved mankind. Emperors have come and died, but God lives.

God’s power is not only much greater than man’s power; it is a wholly different kind of power. We can only create by using materials at our disposal, but God can create ex nihilo. Every day, we have 24 hours to act, but God has no such limitation since he sits outside the time he created. Given our limits, we prioritize the most important things because we cannot do everything. God can do everything, and he does. His infinite power does not imply vast indifference. Rather, God’s power allows him to attend to every particular, including you and me.

Jesus tells us, “even the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Lk 12:7). No atom or photon exists without God knowing and creating it, and we are worth more than many photons. Any temptations to despair of God’s providential care and any suggestions that God is totally indifferent towards us are from the devil. God creates out of love, and he does not abandon the creation he loves.

God is close to us. He knows us individually, and he loves us in our particularity. God’s power is worth delighting in, and so the church has always rejoiced over it with a familiar prayer: “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.”

✠

Photo by Claudel Rheault on Unsplash