Reflections of a Google Geek

I put a “t” into the Google box at the top of my screen. It already knows that I am thinking Target.  Surprisingly, it only needed the“Ho” in “How ” to figure out that I had forgotten how to boil an egg. (Yes, I know.  It’s pathetic, but we don’t eat hard boiled eggs at my house.) This is incredibly useful and convenient.  Need a multiplication game for work?  “Mult” into the trusty box brings up a slew in every level.  Your eight-year old is wondering how much an earthworm eats? Covered.  What can I substitute for the milk that just got spilled all over the floor?  Easy.  Sharpie on the sofa?  Not a problem.  Stats for a sermon? Sure.  And most of the time, I don’t even have to type in the whole question.  AMAZING! (Almost creepy, really.) It’s like it knows.

I don’t even pretend comprehend how the Google box understands what I am going to ask it for before I finish asking.   It is a mystery to high for my little pea brain.  But I like it.  I use it. And I am grateful for it.  I can   remember getting Prodigy dial up internet for the first time when I was a kid.  Type in your password H-E-L-L-O and listen for the sound of the connection “brrrrrrrrrwrwrwrwrwr----BING and wait… in minutes (long minutes) you would be connected to Junior High research paper central.  That was cool.  But the Google box, stands as a whole different level of geek freedom.  Seemingly infinite information, over infinite topics  all in a fraction of second.    And I don't even have to finish my inquiry.

Okay, so I know my daily fascination with with the internet and my Google box makes me a geek.  I am okay with that.  Besides being a geek, I am also prone to make strange connections and be a bit if a mystic.  Maybe that's why my mind goes here:

 Even before a word is on my tongue,

   behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.  Psalm 139:4

Great is our Lord and mighty in power;

his understanding has no limit.  Psalm 147:5 

Just two in a list of many that have come to mind.   Before you click your stumble button, or set a search query for "blogs a little less off the wall"  Hang with me for a second.  When I read verses like this, I can't  fathom it.  I simply can't wrap my head around the enormousness of it all.  And I desperately want to.  So, I look for things in my world to reflect a little light on the situation.   That leaves me here,  juxtaposing the massiveness that the tiny Google box holds with the vastness the One who created the universe.


Sources that I googled (ironic? ha, ha) say that the information powerhouse holds over 2,000,000 servers in data centers placed all over the world.   Big as that is, it sits minuscule in comparison to the one who knows every star and calls it by name  (Psalm147:4) and knows the number of hair on each head. (Matthew 10:30).  All of history has forever been within His grasp.


You might think a being that big would cease to be personal or intimate.   Au contraire, mon frere.  The Master knows our names, our needs and our words even before we speak them.  (Which, by the way, begs a question of why we pray in the first place... but that is another post.  Stay tuned! )  He lives with us, and calls us friends.  While Google's vastness, presence, and helpfulness is astounding at times, can we call it a true friend? That which is inanimate cannot claim intimacy.  While it may serve as a tool in the  creation of connections, it can never create the connections themselves.  An true connection is something our Father is the Master of  It can never claim to be so knowing as to allow is to discover our very selves.   The only information it uses is which we present to it.  The box may seem to know all; we have all come up dry from time to time... worse.  Thankfully, He, actually does know all, and with him we never come up short.  


The next time you enter the wonders of the internet and are struck by the tool that has become a part of our every-day existence I hope you will be struck, too, by One who is ever-so-much higher greater. and more-knowing than that.