I think about this a lot, ive studied astronomy quite a bit and in the grand scheme of things we are very very insignificant, we all think in this tiny bubble of ours we call earth that our lives are pretty important but in reality we are a spec of dust floating through the air or a grain of sand in an endless ocean, as soon as our sun dies our solar system will end and will go totally unnoticed, take our own galaxy for example, its 100,000 light years across, which is mind blowing considering there are over 100billion galaxy’s out there that we know of, now scientists believe there are ( in our milky way galaxy alone) possibly over 100,000 civilizations in our own backyard, its just space is so huge and distances so massive that we cant communicate with them, now think of the other 100billion galaxy’s out there and of all the planets and possible civilizations inside these, its hard to get your head around isn’t it? even more so if we start talking about multiverses, many different dimensions than our own reality, things that are beyond human understanding. …
While it appears we’re insignificant in the universe (and we are, physically speaking - earth itself wouldn’t be visible from the nearest star except with a very powerful telescope eg. the Hubble), my own personal experience is that God knows not only where we are, but what we’re thinking.
I’ve severall times related that I’ve had three double whammies. It’s like a breath going through you in waves from head to foot, very pronounced, arrives out of the blue, and is clearly imposed upon you.
The first time was at a place called Forest Glen Caravan Park, south of Nambour in SE Queensland, Australia (Now that’s a specific place in the universe). It was around Christmas 1983, hot and sultry. I was a new Christian at the time helping out at a Scripture Union “beach mission” (except we weren’t at a beach), and was feeling very cynical about my faith for various reasons. I hadn’t told anybody about my cynicism - not a soul. My thoughts were anything but positive for various reasons.
Anyway a group of us were sitting around under a marquis during a bible study session about 3pm in the afternoon, I was feeling both cranky, but also half dozing off in the sultry weather. But just as the study group leader read from the Bible the phrase “… a man after my own heart…” the first double whammy hit me. I got such a shock I nearly fell of the seat. So here was my first indication that God existed all right, that I was on the right track, and He knew me, and not only that, He knew my frame of mind, and what I was thinking.
When I spoke to my own pastor later about this in my own (Presbyterian) church, he commented, “I think the Lord was just trying to encourage you. He knew you’d been through a tough trot.”
The same sort of “double whammy” occurred twice more, both times in my local church at Wilston Presbyterian Church in Brisbane, and both times when the pastor said something. One reference had to do with St. Paul, and the other with CS Lewis. Prior to this, I’d been getting very frustrated with what I was supposed to do as a Christian.
Both responses had to do this particular issue, but apart from the pastor, I hadn’t spoken to many other Christians at all. So God once again knew how to find me, what I was thinking, what was being said, and how to get the message to me** without anybody else knowing about it.**
Now each occasion was a few months apart. We move a phenomenal distance through space in a few months, and yet God knew on each occasion where to find me, my frame of mind, what was to be said, and how to highlight it with a “double whammy” on each occasion. There’s been three, and three only, “double whammies” but I remember each of them quite clearly.
I’ve also said before that on the night my own father died, he appeared in my room.
He materialised near the door of my bedroom. I remember that amongst other things he looked a bit surprised. Thinking back on that, I suspect he was surprised to find himself in my flat so quickly. He didn’t know where I lived, and I hadn’t spoken to him for a year. In his own words in the following conversation, “I’ve been an absolute mongrel to you!”, and I still have trouble forgving him because he was cruel deilberately, whiich he also admitted.
I deliberately wanted nothing to do with him, and so I’d never let him know where I lived. Yet possibly within a minute or two of his death, he was in my room starting with an apology, followed by a heated discussion, before disappearing with one almighty scream.
I think God sent him, and once again He knew exactly where to find me as I hurtled around the universe at probably severl million miles an hour or more if we add up all the galactic speeds - earth’s rotation, earth’s revolution around the sun, the sun’s revolution around the Milky Way, the Milky Way’s revolution around the universe.
It was also noteable that he seemed to drift a bit rather than just standing in one place. Whowever or whatever was holding him there had to take into account all these very high speed elliptical revolutions, since being spirit he was not subject to gravity to keep his “feet” firmly planted on the floor.
God knows us all right - what we do, what we don’t do, what we say, and what we think.
Despite the immensity of the universe.
So I for one couldn’t care less if we find other life or not - I’m going to answer to God, and I don’t always make a very good fist of things. UFO"s, the possibility of other civilisations etc, are just a potential side show at most - there’s only one thing that’s going to count in the end, and it isn’t whether a little green man turns up on my door step or not.
How would this affect the fine tuning argument that some Christians use for evidence of God? After all, if the universe is that large, it would seem inevitable that a planet would exist that can support life.
