99.9999999999999%

I was struck by something yesterday morning as I sat in church. The universe is huge. (Stop the presses!) But seriously. Huge. Beyond our comprehension, huge. And largely lifeless. Which means that some 99.999999999999% of it is doing exactly what God designed it to do. Give or take a hundred 9's...

What struck me in that moment, as a programmer by trade, is that it makes all the sense in the world (pardon the pun) that God takes a keen interest in getting that last 0.0000000000000001% working right. We're the sticking point to an otherwise perfectly running program, as it were. My goodness, the lengths I will go to when I know that my program is perfect — except for one thing.

Of course I am usually wrong. I fix the one thing and later find out something else isn't perfect either. But God knows. He's not misinformed on the matter. He's got 99.99999999999999999999% of the universe working like a clock. It's just us.

And here is where love comes into play. Because as a programmer I might be inclined to kill the bugs that plague my otherwise perfectly running program. Most customers won't mind losing 0.00000000000001% functionality if the rest of the product works great. But God didn't take the easy way out. Not like that. He wants to restore what was lost. Not annihilate it and release a product with slightly fewer features.

But so many souls! Six billion? Seven? So many problems, and all bound up in the tiniest corner of his project. But then I remember that for every human soul on earth there are dozens of galaxies (if not more) and that in each galaxy there are a hundred billion stars... and God's got them all working just fine. It's suddenly not so amazing that God is able to pay attention to me. He's running the universe. And most of it is running just fine. It's just that last 0.00000000000000000% that needs help. A few billion souls in a tiny corner. No, for God the daunting part is not the count of the souls but rather the price to redeem them.

Infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinitely tender love... and perhaps a touch of a programmer's perfectionism. He wants to get that last bit right. How wondrous to see the lengths God will go to in order to get our universe right. To give up himself, to become like us, to die for us... in order to perfect that last 0.0000000000001%

What a mighty God we serve!
What a mighty God we serve!
Angels bow before Him.
Heaven and Earth adore Him.
What a mighty God we serve!