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Everywhere You Go


Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:24)

          Where is space? Where does one have to go to be in it? The first answer we give is that it’s “out there, beyond the atmosphere, between the planets and the stars.” Some who are more terrestrial will say that it’s outside the cities where there are fewer buildings and, more importantly, fewer people. Space is where you can twirl like Julie Andrews at the beginning of Sound of Music and not hit anything or anyone. Ah, that’s space.
         Of course, the reality is that the Milky Way is in space, which means the Solar system is in space. That means that the Earth is in space and therefore, we are in space even when we’re sitting at our kitchen tables. Our cities are within the wide open spaces where we can twirl like Judy, so our cities are in space. Space is all around us. In fact, it even fills us because there is space between our cells, and between the protons, electrons, and neutrons that make up our bodies. There’s a Star Trek: The Next Generation in which a crystalline life form described the heroes as “ugly bags of mostly water.” The crystalline life form was biased, but if it had been honest, it would have noted that both it and Picard’s people were “ugly bags of mostly space.”
         People get the same sort of silly ideas about God, even those who have known him for years sometimes fall victim. God is in Heaven, sitting on the throne, and He looks down on us like a divine Peeping Tom. He’s far worse than a peeper. Read Psalm 139. There is nowhere that He is not. There is nowhen that He is not. 
         This is not to suggest that God and the universe are one and the same. That’s either pantheism or panentheism, depending on your perspective of what that means. The universe is separate from God, and it does not contain Him but He fills the heavens and the earth. 
         Do I even begin to understand how this is true? I’d like to say I have a few clues, but I’m probably wrong. All I can say is that not having a physical body has something to do with it, and that is just shows how much greater then we are God is.

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