By Sarah Nutter
A while back I was sitting at my computer (nothing new there), eyes glazed over, taking in all the wonders technology has to offer, when – horror of horrors – it actually turned itself off.
“Well that’s not normal,” I thought to myself.
I switched into superwoman mode and tried to fix it. Turns out I should stick to what I’m good at: sleeping, eating, and petting my dog. So I changed gears from superwoman mode to whine mode, marched over to my dad’s lazyboy, and demanded an explanation. He so gently informed me that our computer had a virus.
In all the times I’d envisioned this, my worst nightmare come true, I pictured myself passing out. But I didn’t (because that would have been pathetic). Instead my insides just screamed, “Are you kidding me?!”
Good ole’ dad looked at me and said, “No, I’m not kidding.” (Telepathic communication is a perfected skill in my house.)
I stumbled into my room. Suddenly I was lost in life. I sat on my bed and stared at the ceiling. No computer? For how long, God? How long must I endure this terrible misfortune???
I tried to resign myself to living life without modern technology. I really did. But every time I thought of the deep conversations I’d miss on AIM about things like cheese and sheep, and how many emails I’d never get, and how civilization would move on without me, my head started to hurt.
“You have got to get a hold of yourself, Sarah”. It didn’t look good – I missed my computer, and I missed it BAD. “Just think about something else.” So, in an unexpected act of brilliance, I looked around my room to find something to do.
And then I saw it. Now, I know what you’re thinking: this is the part of the story where she finds her Bible, opens it up, and her life is altered in a dramatic way? Wow! You’re smart!! That’s exactly what happens next!
I opened up my Bible and my life was altered in a dramatic way. But maybe not in the way you’d expect. After I dusted off the cover (it had been a while), I flipped to Psalms and decided to check out random verses. Which ended up being a swell idea ‘cuz I happened to stumble upon this:
Let those who love Your salvation say continually, “The Lord be magnified!” Psalm 40:16(NASBE)
I thought, “Magnify? Yeah, right. As if God needs magnification that’d mean He’s small. And He’s NOT small.” I decided I’d just move on to the next verse and forget about the whole confusing magnetism concept.
Turns out, it wasn’t up to me. The more I read that chapter, the more the magnetism concept jumped out at me. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
Later that night, I was pretty depressed – felt incredibly lonely. And I decided that I needed a hug. From my mom (kill the laughter now). Unfortunately, she wasn’t as excited about giving me that hug, considering it was 2:00 in the morning and all. So she got a little mad … and then I got a little mad – and I ended up opening up the Bible out of pure anger. As I read, God cleared my head and heart from that anger, and all of the sudden I felt so comforted. I opened up to verse after verse about how God is our comfort when we need it, and how He loves us no matter what.
That’s when I realized what the Bible meant by magnitism. Confused? Lemme ease that up for ya.
I realized that my God is too small. In my mind, He wasn’t big enough to comfort me – I had to go to my mom first. I mean, yeah, God’s not small – doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out. But I think we make Him out to be small. We shrink God up in our minds, to where He becomes a tiny little thing who can’t do anything but rule the world – big deal. So we turn to other things and people first when we have problems, ’cause they just help us more, right? (all together now – “wrong”)
Normally I’d turn to my computer. I’d go online and talk to my friends or read emails or do whatever made me happy, without giving a second thought to God and how He’s bigger than all that. Bad. Bad. Bad.
It all boils down to magnetism. Really, when the Bible says, “magnify the Lord,” it means just that. Magnify God in your mind. ‘Cause I’ll bet that right now, your God isn’t as big as some other things in your life. BLOW HIM UP, GUYS!!! Make Him HUGE!!! Make Him explode with bigness!! Cause that’s what He is. Big.
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