i-Pods and intimacy

“A thirteen-year-old girl I know,” he recounted to us, sitting on couches, “had just received an i-Pod. If you didn’t know, there is an option to enter a four-digit code to lock it. The i-Pod was from a pawn shop, and locked, and no one knew the code. With four digits, there are 10,000 possibilities.” He paused for effect. “The teen was upset—here she is with a new i-Pod she can’t use. Her mother encouraged her to ask God for the code. So, she goes to her bedroom, asks God, and a number pops in her head. She types it in, and the i-Pod is unlocked. Out of 10,000 possibilities. That was God.” He ended the story by saying, “Our God wants to make himself known, and comes to us where we are at.”

I trust the man who told me the story from his first-hand account. But I immediately retreat to my brain. I am realizing how much “intellectualizing” is a protection for me. If I stay up there, doubt, think, ponder, prove, rationalize, search, study I don’t have to feel or touch my heart. So, I retreat to my brain—does God care about an i-Pod? Does he care if we have a little i-Pod code? And if so, then does it matter to him what shirt I wear and the other details? And I go off on rabbit-trails.

I’m troubled—why did that little account bother me? It seems a little incongruent with a sovereign God who comes riding on the clouds, who is Lord of the stars, who has a plan from the beginning of the earth, whose purposes will stand, who has life and death in his hands… But it doesn’t steal from his glory. And it is the miracle that the Scriptures attest to: that the Creator cares for his people as the apple of his eye (Deut. 32:10); that he stoops down to make us great (Ps. 18:35); that he who created the heavens is mindful of man (Ps. 8:5); that the Prince of Glory would humble himself to walk in our world, to identify with our sufferings to help us when we are tempted and to carry our punishment (Heb. 2:17-18; Heb. 4:15-16; 2 Cor. 5:21). Why would we limit God? As if i-Pods and their significance to teen girls does not matter? As if he has more important things on his mind, that he cannot care about both the huge suffering in the world and the little things like i-Pods and lost keys?

This is the miracle.

He is the God who does want to make himself known. He has revealed himself in ways we understand, in our language. But he reveals himself personally as well…as miraculous as that is. Satan likes to make us err, on the one hand, by thinking God is not involved at all, or, on the other hand, by becoming so buddy-buddy with him that we lose the fear. The fear and intimacy can be hard balance.

“See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Mt. 6:28b-30).

I am challenged and humbled—do I seek him in the little things? Or do I think I can handle them? Is it my first response to go to him? Do I expect him to be involved in the little things of life—which also means, am I willing to surrender to him all the little details of life? Do I listen to his voice and his acts in the little things? If he spoke, would I hear him? Woe to me of the rapid, controlled life… How much have I missed?