Some four months ago I wrote about "The Message". Well, now I have read it, I finished Revelations yesterday. The book gave me many a good laugh, Eugene Peterson sure knows how to use the English language! I´d like to hear that man preach...

Last week I came across a sentence in Colossians that became that day´s golden lining:

"You don´t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ!"

Right! Some people seem to think that God is so small and so very far away that a telescope would be needed to find Him. But there is no such equipment needed, since we live and breath, we have our whole existence in God! He´s not far from any of us!

And there are some people who try to take God to the microscope, try to figure God out, try to find methods and tricks by which God can be persuaded to do our will. Which is the worst evil that there is in man - our desire to become like God, or to make him our errand boy.

When we realize that it is much better for us if God´s will is done, than if things go our way, then the need for a microscope is gone.

It´s not necessary for me to know everything about God - not if I understand that God knows everything about me!

And there are those who read horoscopes, and think they´ll get some clue what´s gonna happen next, those who call blind destiny their god, who believe that the future is already decided and written in the stars. But there ain´t no god to be found looking through a horoscope either!

But, a word of warning here! Don´t be so fast to laugh at those who hardly dare go outside their front door before they have read the horoscope! What this is all about is Man´s desire to control the future by knowing it - and how often aren´t we all tempted to ask someone with prophetic reputation what´s gonna happen next?

There is nothing needed but the Message! Through the Gospel we find Jesus, and when we find Jesus we find the Father and the Spirit - and they have been out looking for us all the time!

We aren´t meant to be in control, not by knowing God in ways that we figure would allow us to control and use him, not by squeezing out prophetic information on our future, not by any means! We are meant to believe in God, trust in God, let Him be our hope and our future!

No telescope, but faith. No microscope, but love. No horoscope, but hope!

Which is the Message I'm going to preach within three hours from now this gray and rainy second day of May!