Wild Extravagance

Don Miller | December 2020

Numbers. They can reveal hidden messages.

God wanted beautiful, colorful shapes to rise out of brown earth for our enjoyment. We have 369,000 different kinds of these growing structures. We call them flowers, and all their beauty is constructed by the power of the sun. That’s extravagant.

God wanted pinpoints of light in the sky above us. These one-million-times-the-size-of-the-earth nuclear fire balls we call stars exist in numbers that that are so staggering that they cannot be comprehended. Our galaxy’s 200 BILLION would take one of us 6000 years just to count–if we could count around the clock and never stop. AND THERE ARE OVER 100 BILLION STAR CLUSTERS LIKE THIS IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. This is extravagance that overwhelms the mind.

God wanted beautiful porcelain-like objects on the earth so He created mollusk snails to make them on their backs! Who’d ever need more evidence for God than a hefty exotic seashell collection?! Seashells alone number somewhere over 100,000 different kinds.

The topography of Mars is horribly dull. Oh, it’d be fascinating to be on Mars at first, but–after a month or so– average people would be bored out of their minds. Just more and more and more and more of the same.

To eliminate same everywhere-ness, God created growing 3-dimensional pieces of art we call plants. Numbers here top 391,000 with every variety of living sun-energy-powered-panels imaginable. We call them leaves, but, in reality, they are God-inventions of another dimension. Leaves are miniature power plants working at speeds of 100 trillionths of a second!

Everywhere you look, there is extravagance. Food is incredibly wonderful. Our bodies are priceless gifts capable of all kinds of wonderful things. Who could begin to make their own body? Who could make just one finger of it? How about the sounds of the forest, the fish of the waters, the birds of the winds? When God began constructing His beautiful gifts in the moments of Creation, He worked to create such blessing, such abundance, such extravagance that it is overwhelming in the most extremely positive way.

What’s it all mean? The hidden message is, that though the world tosses troubles our way, as we were told it would, the God of the universe is the extravagant Creator with exceeding extravagant ends.

Has he stopped? Hardly. Even now on His agenda are things too wonderful that if you knew them, you’d be overboard astonished.

The Bible says it this way to make sure we don’t miss it; God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all WE CAN PRAY FOR OR IMAGINE.

That’s really quite a shake-up sentence. Think of a thousand things you can ask God for. Think of the most truly good and wonderful things you can imagine. This verse says it real clear; The God who created the numbers of wonders is in process of making truly extravagant things come to pass…things that we would not believe if we were told.

“Look among the nations, be astonished, wonder. I am doing something in your day that you would not believe if you were told.”–Habakkuk 1:5