God is about gathering. Any definition of God that fits our circumstances in this world, past, present and future, has this bottom line, He gathers. Everything else that can be said about the God of the galaxies is secondary and derivative. The word gather and it’s cousins appear 353 times in the Old Testament and 69 times in the New Testament, so we are not in uncharted biblical territory. Granted a large percentage of these references are not directly God related but to discard them quickly is to reject their obvious foundational character in all things.
God has used his gathering process to form our world, our galaxy and the millions of similar galaxies that make up the endless expanse of space and time. Can we comprehend it all? Our small minds are trying to humanize the things of God by insisting on a short time frame for the age of the universe while the scientific time frame of an unknown billions of years is a credit and compliment to the God of the galaxies. Did it all begin with a big bang or some other grand spectacle, is God a magician or an all powerful gathering creative force? No matter, the how is not as important as the action of our God who by gathering put it all together and no amount of science can or will discredit this open cosmic gathering definition.
It works or explains the macrocosm and the microcosm of all things. God has gathered together all life forms on this earth. It may have taken six, seven or eight billion years but the gathering God is in control and has proven Himself by the wonders of His creation. Our world has been precisely placed by His gathering process into this Milky Way galaxy, into this solar system and at a precise orbit around our sun that makes life possible. Are there other planets so wondrously placed in other solar systems of the other billions of galaxies? Sure there are, but does that make God any less interested in our earth, after all, is He not God? Is not our reality His reality?
We must choose, is all this wonder an accidental freak of some naturalistic pointless process? A believer answers that before all else there was God. The possibility of change plus time equals a gathering which finally resulted in humanity, a humanity that carries the very image of that God. A reflection of God is in our DNA and our journey toward civilization has always been as hunter gatherers. About 12,000 years ago our ancestors expanded their reality to include the beginnings of socialization as we gathered as like people, domesticated animals and provided for this gathering of peoples with an agrarian economy. And here we are today, not far removed from the gathering of our ancestors.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
