God Is Always Bigger

Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”

Numbers 13:30

In Russia they are known as matryoshki. In the West we call them “nesting dolls.” They are the most popular and well known of all Russian souvenirs—the gradually-decreasing-in-size wooden dolls that nest inside one another.

It helps for us to see God as the one in whom all the affairs of our life “nest.” For instance, when the twelve spies went up from Kadesh Barnea to check out the Promised Land, ten of them saw only the size of the giants in the land. They didn’t see God looming larger than the giants. David, on the other hand, when he saw the giant Goliath, wasn’t afraid of being smaller than the giant, because he saw the giant as being smaller than God.

If we look hard enough in this life, we’ll always find a problem bigger than our current one. But if we look with spiritual eyes, we’ll always see that God is bigger than them all. If you’re facing a problem right now that is bigger than you are, look again. That problem “nests” inside God’s purposes for your life. The problem is larger than you, but God is larger than the problem.

Keep stepping back until God, not your problem, fills your vision.

In the church we seem to have the vision of the majesty of God.

JOHN R. W. STOTT^a