Omni-God

The ABC’s of knowing God better: the letter “O”

  

If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. – Psalm 139:9–10 (NKJV)
      
“I am with you always.” – Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 28:20 (NKJV)
      
      
My husband and I were at a fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration when the storm hit. We were on the front porch chatting with family we hadn’t seen in a while. The two-year-old daughter of his cousin was playing on the sidewalk when an earsplitting boom of thunder sounded and lightning flashed across the sky—close, too close for comfort.
      
She ran to the porch crying, passed her mommy, and went straight to my husband, extending her little arms to him in a child’s “pick me up” pose. He obliged. Her crying stopped immediately.
      
He was her hero that day.
      
I, too, have someone to run to when life’s storms rage around me. And not only then. I seem to bother God with all sorts of trivial things—trivial compared to what other folks are going through.
      
I remember my mother did the same. She’d hang the laundry on the outside clothesline, then look heavenward and say, “Now, don’t You let it rain.”
      
So I learned early to take all my cares and anxieties to God (1 Peter 5:7).
      
That was the one of the foundation blocks of the faith I have today. For throughout my life, I’ve seen firsthand that He is, indeed, an “Omni-God”—omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (“Omni” means “all, in all ways, without limits.”) He is present everywhere, knows everything, and is all-powerful.
      
In other words, He’s hero material—a real hero, not a fictional one you meet in movies and books. Don’t we hope, deep inside, that someone like Indiana Jones, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Rhett Butler, and Benjamin Gates (National Treasure) would appear in our lives?
      
We all need a hero.
      
With Omni-God, we have one.
      
But the choice is ours: We can run to Him when the thunder booms and the lightning crackles too close for comfort. We can go to Him with the big things and the little things, because anything that concerns us, concerns Him.
      
Or we can run the other way or ignore Him. Neither of which, by the way, works. He always knows where we are, we can never get away from His presence, and He is more powerful than we are.
      
Omni-God, though, is a gentleman and will wait until you're ready—like the prodigal son when he “came to himself” (Luke 15:17). And, like the father in that parable, He waits until He sees you.

Then, no matter what you’ve done or how long or how far you’ve strayed, “He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will renew you in his love; He will exult over you with loud singing as on the day of a festival” (Zephaniah 3:17).
      
Omni-God—Is He your hero?
      
      
Omni-God, thank you for being there when I come running. Thank you for being my hero. Amen.

 Special-Tea: Read Psalm 139