Details in the big picture.

As a kid in school, the word “Grammar” pretty much sucked the joy out of a day.  Who cares what a predicate is?  I talk good - what does it matter? (If you know, you know.)

Slowly, the importance of grammar began to make sense to me.  There is a huge difference between these two sentences:  “Let’s eat, Grandma” and “Let’s eat Grandma.”  One little comma - in my schoolboy mind, a trivial detail - changes everything.  The motto for the radio station in Ecuador was, “We’re not just another voice;  we a friend who cares.”  If we didn’t pay attention to the grammar, it could be understood as: “We’re not just another voice, we are a friend.  Who cares?”  The difference is significant.

Details matter.  There are those who thrive on details and take great joy in nit-picking us non-detail people to death.  But if we flip over the coin, we find the other type of person:  the big picture-er.  While not denying the importance of details, these people focus on the view from thirty-thousand feet.  Commas in a sentence may be important, but how many words are there overall?  Paper clips may cost five dollars a box, but what is the total cost of each square foot of space in the office?  

People tend to fall into one category or the other:  detail pickers or big picture-ers.  It is possible, of course, to learn to think about the “other side” of life.  In reality, we need both types of people and it is a beautiful thing when they can work together harmoniously (undoubtedly after some irritation and head-butting).

None of us see the world the same way.  There is a beauty (and sometimes, frustration) in that.  There is also an undisclosed danger:  our perspective of God will be based on our natural biases toward life.  Are we a “detailists” or a “generalists?”  Do we prefer structure over loosey-goosey-ness?  Neither one is “better” than the other;  neither one is “right” and the other “wrong.”  In reality, we are all complex mixes of varying degrees.  None of us are everything.  

The one notable exception - and He is not a created being - is God Himself.

Being perfect in every sense of the word, the God we worship has a complete understanding of both the big picture and the tiniest of details.  There is no bias to start from the “general” and move to the “particular” or vice versa.  There is no struggle to understand the universal or the specific, no distractions (SQUIRREL!), no apathy, no weariness of the same-old, same-old.  He does not need lists or databases or AI to maintain the order and purposes of His created order.  He doesn’t get confused trying to find a “balance” for one thing with the other.

His engagement with His created order - theologians call it “providence” - is not the robotic function of a well-trained valet or butler.  It is the gentle nurturing of a nursing mother (Isa. 49:15), the protectiveness of a hen with chicks (Luke 13:34), the concern of a shepherd who lost a lamb (Luke 15), a carpenter who is skilled in crafting well-fitting equipment (Matt. 11:29), and a Creator who names and tracks lumps of dust and ice in space (Isa. 40:26).

We will always struggle to understand this.  We are not like God;  He is “other.”  Fortunately, His providence in our lives is neither triggered by nor dependent on our ability to understand.  It is driven by the totality of His character:  His love, grace, compassion, mercy, righteousness, justice, and holiness in complete and perfect function all the time (God does not stop being “loving” in order to be “just”).  

This truth is so “other” we can hardly embrace its reality.  This is sooo different from who and what we are.   How can it be?   While we will never fully comprehend this, there is value in pausing to ponder.  It is truth.  It is truth that changes our perspective on everything.  We can’t explain it.  We embrace it.

Whoever said, “Stop and smell the roses” offers good advice.  There is great value to stop so we may consider, as best we can, the thoroughness with which God’s fingers of grace infiltrate everything about life. Right here.  Right now. Always.