Other Sheep

From time to time, someone asks me if I believe in the existence of intelligent life not based on Earth. Once I explain that I do believe in angels and demons they will clarify the question. They want to know if I believe in intelligent life on the physical plane that did not originate on Earth.

I then answer that I neither believe nor disbelieve. I am open to the possibility that the God who created the universe could have created intelligent life on other worlds in addition to our planet. Jesus said, "I have other sheep not of this fold." For centuries is has been assumed "the other sheep" he was referring to were just human beings who were not descendants of Jacob. But, there is nothing which precludes Jesus' statement from having a larger implication.

C.S. Lewis postulated such possibilities in his space trilogy. I certainly can't claim to be the first. The more I learn to appreciate the greatness of God, the less unlikely it seems that there may be intelligent life on other worlds. At the same time, the more I learn of the rarity of the conditions we enjoy on this Eden we call Earth, the less likely it seems there would be such extra-terrestrial intelligent life in close enough proximity that we will ever discover them on our own. God knows. For the present, I have to leave the matter there.

The Sheep Don't Understand How Great The Shepherd Is

There are countless expressions of God's greatness in the fraction of the universe of within our own awareness. The contemplation of them fills me with awe. From the macrocosm of the realm of astrophysics to the microcosm of microbiology it blows my mind how God orders everything on such wonderous scale. I am amazed how things operate according to the rules and principles of what we regard as the natural order knowing that God created those rules and principles.

Human nature, being what it is, the things God does that impress us most readily are the times God acts in apparent contradiction to the divinely established natural principles. We lable these as miracles. However, as I place these actions in the context of the omnipotence of God, I find them less surprising and even to be expected. What I increasingly find more wonderous are the ways in which God acts within the confines of God's own established laws to bring about the desired result.

To illustrate what I mean, consider a simple two dimensional puzzle maze printed on a sheet of paper. You are given the task of taking your pencil and drawing a route from one point in that maze to another point. Now, you certainly have the ability to violate all the rules and make your mark straight across all the lines, borders, boxes, etc. and go right to your goal point. That is absolutely something you can do though it violates the rules for solving the maze. It is far more noteworthy when you stay within the structure of the rules and still draw your mark from the starting point to the goal.

Omnipotent God is not limited to operating within the divinely established natural order. However, I am fascinated by the many ways in which God does so while still bringing about extraordinary results. Permit me a personal illustration.

The year was 1970. I was fourteen years old and out of school for the summer. My maternal grandparents (Louis J. Rankin and Rhoda H. Rankin) were missionaries in Peru where they had been working for a number of years. I was going to stay with them for the summer. The plans were for me to travel from Atlanta to Miami where I would pick up a flight on a small freight airline called Copisa. From there I would make my way to Lima, Peru and on to Pucalpa, Peru which was the nearest airport to my grandparents' remote jungle mission station. My grandparents were to meet me there at the Pucalpa airport.

With communication being what it was in those days, all these plans had been laid out in paper mail correspondence. Mail time from the United States to my grandparents' Peruvian jungle station could easily be two weeks or more. Once plans were made any last minute changes cause problems.

As planned, I flew from Atlanta to Miami with no challenges. However, when I got to Miami, I learned that Copisa had decided they did not have enough freight to justify the trip, so they had postponed that flight until the following week. I found a telephone booth and called my parents and explained the situation. Then, I waited by the phone booth until they called me back to tell me what they had worked out. I was to fly Braniff airlines from Miami to Lima the next day. In Lima, I was to change to Faucett airlines and fly to Pucalpa. Meanwhile, I got a room there at a hotel there at the airport while my parents tried to send a wire to my grandparents regarding the changes.

Sure enough, I flew out on Braniff airlines the next day. However, we had some

problems during the flight and had to make an unscheduled maintenance stop. The result was that we were late in arriving in Lima, Peru. I had missed my connecting flight on Faucett airlines to Pucalpa. I was travelling by myself, spoke hardly any Spanish and was only fourteen years old. I was in a strange country and did not know what to do. I collected my luggage and just sat and prayed. "God, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what to do, but You do."

About that time, a uniformed security guard came up to me and in broken English asked if he could help me. I told him what had happened about me missing my flight to Pucalpa because my Braniff flight arrived late. I told him I did not know how I was going to get to Pucalpa now. He listened and then helped me finish clearing customs. Then, he took my tickets and said he would be back in a few minutes. When he came back, he explained that Lansa airlines had a flight to Pucalpa that would be leaving in a little while. They would accept my unused Faucett ticket as payment and give me a flight on their plane. I had never heard of anyone doing anything like that. I did not know this was a fairly common practice among airlines in that part of the world in those days.

I then did the only thing I could think of. I tried to send a telegram from Lima to the airport in Pucalpa to get a message to my grandparents that I would be arriving on the Lansa flight. I hoped and expected they would get that message.

The security guard waited with me until I boarded the Lansa flight. Compared to the Braniff jet, the Lansa prop plane was a rickety bucket of bolts. However, we made it safely to Pucalpa.

When I got off the plane, I did not see my grandparents. However, I went on to get my luggage from the baggage claim area. Then, as I turned around and looked outside, I saw my grandmother getting out of a Volkswagen van. I ran up to her and gave her quite a surprise. Here's why.

In the days prior to my trip, Peru had been rocked by a major earthquake and several after shocks. Many lines of commuication had been disrupted. My grandparents never got the message from my parents about the travel changes. They were arriving to meet a Copisa flight on the wrong day. This was the first time they had been to the airport to meet me that day. Furthermore, they thought they were a couple of hours early. They knew nothing about meeting the Faucett flight a couple of hours earlier.

If everything had gone according to plan from my end, I would have ended up lost in a strange country as a fourteen year old kid. Instead, everything happened exactly as it needed to for me to rendevous with my grandparents. Every setback and every delay contributed to the perfect timing of my arrival. When they understood the events of the prior two days, my grandparents were in awe of God's oversight and shepherding hand. As a fourteen year old kid, I just took it all in stride.

Modern Man Considers God's Greatness

In early times, people had a very limited concept of the earth itself, nevermind the universe. It required less of God to have created what was known back then. But when you start with the premise that all that exists is God's creation, then as our understanding of what exists expands, then our idea of God's greatness must expand along with it.


Today, we embrace a universe with dimensions that stagger the mind and were impossible to be understood by earliest civilization. Some even postulate the existence of other universes. We also are learning more about the details of our own planet. We are learning ever more down to even the subatomic level. Our knowledge as a civilization is expanding both outward and inward. We should never fear scientific discovery, for all truth is God's truth. Rather, our appreciation for God's greatness should only continue to grow.

Affirming the Greatness of God Regardless of Circumstances

We should always affirm the greatness of God. When things are going well, this is easy. We are naturally more bright and positive in our outlook when everything is going our way. However, it is just possible that we need to declare God's greatness to ourselves and others even more when things do not seem to be going our way.

In Psalm 70 the psalmist writes, "Let those who love your salvation say evermore, 'God is great!'" (verse 4b). To me this suggests that those who are conscious of their need for some sort of rescue from God should be particularly focused on God's greatness. Why is this? I can think of a couple of reasons.

Focusing on God's greatness lifts our spirits. Our moods are largely set by where we place our attention. If our attention is on our problems, it pulls us down. But if we are placing God's greatness uppermost in our thoughts, our problems become insignificant by comparison.

Focusing on God's greatness increases our faith. Actually, when we recognize the limitless power and greatness of God and truly embrace it, very little faith is required. One of my favorite quotes is from a dear lady I met several years ago before she passed away. Corrie Ten Boom was much admired for how she endured the Nazi concentration camps during World War II and someone commented on her great faith. Corrie said, "No, I have only a little faith in a GREAT BIG GOD."

God's Greatness Blows Your Mind

In early Hebrew writings numerous references suggest that no one can look upon the face of God and live. The exact origin of this belief is unclear, but it is quite old. As some of the patriarchs met angelic representatives of God they marveled that they survived the face to face encounter.

One of the most astounding characters of ancient civilization was Moses. His own relationship with God provided the foundation for many of the theological constructs prevalent today. His writings pointed to God as the Author, Creator, Designer of the universe. The scientific details were absent, of course. God was revealed to Moses within the limits of Moses' capacity to understand. Even then, Moses' mind was stretched.

One day, as Moses was talking with God, he asked God to show him God's glory. Now, consider what he was asking. The known physical universe is greater than the capacity of most of us to comprehend. God is the Maker of all that. How was a finite man like Moses supposed to be able to actually view the glory of God? It was not possible. God told Moses that He would only show Moses a portion of His backside lest Moses die.

Of course all of this is anthropomorphic. We may be made in the image of God, but in our thinking we tend to remake God in our own. In relating to us, God uses images and concepts we can grasp. But these images and concepts are mere representations of the greater Truth.

The outcome of this encounter Moses had with the glory of God was that Moses was physically changed. His face would shine with a divine luminance. However, the ancient records show that over time this radiance diminished. Some have suggested this was because Moses was not walking as closely with God as before, but I disagree. Here is my speculation regarding this. Moses had a special encounter that actually altered his skin cells. We know that over time nearly every cell in the body is replaced. As old skin cells were sloughed off and newer ones took their place, there was a gradual restoration of Moses' face to its original nature. The encounter Moses had may have been nearly fatal and so was not repeated in that way.

Consider for a moment the intricacies of the human body. It functions as a unit made up of many different systems. Each of these systems has component parts. Each of these parts is made up of individual cells. Each of these cells contains the genetic coding for the entire body but have their own specialized function. These cells each have their component parts which also have specialized functions. And there are even greater details microbiologists could mention. Consider that God is the Designer of all that!

Consider that there are thousands upon thousands of different types of living organisms on this planet. Imagine having a database with all the details of every member of every one of those species both past and present. Consider that that same database has all the information of all the weather patterns and geography of this planet right down to the shape of every snowflake and the position of every grain of sand. Consider that this is true of not only this planet, but of every planet in our solar system. Ponder that not only our solar system but all the information for all the other star systems in the Milky Way are contained in that database at the same level of detail. Now, expand that database to include not only our galaxy but all the other galaxies in the known universe. Consider that there is much beyond the known universe but all that information is in this same Database.

If we could truly grasp all this we would have a comprehension of one aspect of the nature of God, God's omniscience. But if we could really pack that concept into our minds, I believe our brains would explode. We would have seen the face of God.

God is Older than All

Many of us have noticed that the older we get, the more time flies. But, to a child, time seems to creep. I am convinced that this is a perception in our minds based on how each block of time compares with the totality of our own experience. A young child has very little experience against which to measure each segment of time. Therefore time seems longer. We who have considerably more years are only too aware of how rapidly time rushes by. Now, compare your lifetime with the age of the universe. Cosmologists say the universe is more than 16 billion years old. Consider that God is before all and is eternal. The psalmist wrote: “You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a mere breath.” (Psalm 39:5 NSRV) There are some things that happen in our lives that are so fleeting we aren’t even sure what we observed. Our lives are more fleeting than that compared against the existence of God. Yet, remarkably, God not only takes notice but is actively involved.

Contemplating God's Greatness Leads to Humility

The natural response to meditating on God's greatness is humility. The Psalmist discovered this as expressed in Psalm 8. "When I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars, which Thou ordainest, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?" The psalmist had an even more limited understanding of the vastness of the universe than we have today. Yet, even with those greater limits, he was overwhelmed and humbled by his contemplation of the greatness of God. He marveled at God's involvement with humanity. How could so great a Being deign to involve Himself in the affairs of such lowly creatures?

The more science teaches us about the wonders of the universe, the more I am humbled in the presence of the Creator of them all.