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SUMS, SUMMITS and IN SUM

Adding Things Up, and Getting Things Down

CHAPTER 8

Ain't Doing nothing!

One day, a certain gentleman was telling his grand-daughter, whom he loved to tease, that once upon a time,  there was nothing.

What was it doing ? she asked.

It was just doing nothing, because you see, that it is all it COULD DO, so it did it.

Ah! she said, how boring ...

Then it had an idea. It thought it would be good to become something. You know, it is just the same with people, they often just drift along, then  decide they are going to make something of themselves, so that is what nothing did.

How  did it think it if was nothing ?

That has nothing to do with it. When you make up stories, half of their charm, is that you throw caution to the winds, and make a sort of lazy parallel of real things, with ridiculous ingredients just thrown in for  zest.

Oh! she said, but I feel this is very strange. Why CALL it nothing ?

Just to be ridiculous.

Well, anyway, what did it do ?

It became atoms and then it thought again,  Why shouldn't I tie up with other atoms (you know,  the way young people  sometimes feel  very independent,  but then think of marrying some other person ?)  ...

But those are people. This is nothing.

Well, it was nothing, but now having nothing else to do, it decided to be atoms,  and then to join up.

But why ? If it had been nothing for so long, you would think it would be very glad to be something at last, if that were something that nothing could do at all.

Well,  this was a very determined sort of nothing.

Nothing can't be determined at all, else it would be something determined.

True, but remember, this is a ridiculous story.

I'll agree to that; but go on grand-pa, what did it do next. It sounds a bit like a think-tank to me, but if you want to  call  it nothing, go on then.

Well, it  found that the molecules, compounds when  they got together (you know how lonely people often  feel rather better when they join up in clubs and that sort of thing, and then  can  play all  sorts of games), were much more fun when it was all arranged,  so  that there were only some sorts of joining up you could have, and not others; but if you kept to the very strict rules, then there were more and more things you could join up with (you know, like belonging to a local Girl Guides groups, and then going to a world jamboree).

They call it scouts now.

Whatever for ?

Well, it's perhaps a bit like your nothing,  because girls often  want to be at least as important as boys, and since boys in terms of rough-stuff and doing things brave and heroic sometimes can start  earlier than girls and go further,  while girls can  sometimes speak and read better than boys at earlier ages, they invade the scouts.

Well, nothing could not invade. After all, it had been altogether nothing for ...

For so long ?  But grand-pa, if there was nothing at all,  there would be any time at all,  so how could nothing have been around for ANY time, far less lots of it, when it was not even there!

My dear, you are  very logical, and would probably therefore be failed in most reputable logic courses in secular universities, but never mind, there is not much more time.

Why not ?

Because when nothing invented  time ...

How could it, since it was not even there to  do it.

But I said it WAS there. That is how the story started.

What is not there in a set-up that is not there, can't do anything and making up time is what people  do in prisons,  but only when the prison system is there!

Well, it is  meant to be a ridiculous story.

All right then. What did it do then  ?

It thought and thought and thought for a long time (time having by now been one of its little nothings, that nothing made, you see, it liked adventures in making things - you know how some children like to  do that,  as they become more and more important and active ?).

Yes, but those children are  already there, and growing on a ground plan.

True, but this is a fantasy.

You could say that again.

It decided it was time to have a mind. So it made mind, and then ...

But grand-pa, how could it decide without having a mind to do it with ?

It couldn't my dear, but this will help you not to believe people are mad if you ever reach a university course in this sort of stuff.

But I thought this was just a story.

It is, but they love to tell stories in this sort of thing in universities ?

Why, because they are bored ?

I think it is because they are being bored.

Bored ? by what ?

By the not-nothing, who first made our sort of time, with all the laws, and liaisons, rules and opportunities, chosen channels for things to work in, and to be worked out in, together with the minds to deploy and use them, and the wills to decide what to do, after due thought, as with the spirits to see ways of looking at things that they liked, or did not.

Yes, grand-pa, I suppose too He made them with the power to  hate goodness and God and His starting up of time,  so that things could do things in it,  and His measuring them,  so that they could be worked out, what they were up to, and His advice,  so that they could not pretend just to be things, and His ... what else grand-pa ? and his sort of creation, so that they could not do all they wanted in it and with it, and his monopoly - is that the word ? on making sorts of living things, the kinds that flutter around what they are, and can never become something altogether different, however much you kick them or hate them. And what else, don't they like, do you think grand-pa ?

It is His judgment, my dear. You see from when you were very young, if you ever did well or not,  someone would judge, whether it was your eating or talking or grammar or behaviour, or art ...

And these people don't  like being judged, so they judge God nothing, and then get stuck, is that it grand-pa ?

That is the general way of it,  my dear. But since God is not impressed with all this much-ado about nothing, from which nothing comes, but it HAS come, therefore time is going to run out soon, and they are going to run to hide from Him. You read Isaiah 2 and see what He has told us. It is like bush-fires: be prepared.

Do you mean, run to hide from Jesus, grand-pa, the One who came to put things right for man, but whom they crucified, as if to tell Him to get lost, and find out about nothing ?

He is the judge, my dear: He says so in John 5 and Paul says so in Acts 17:31; and nothing just goes anywhere, since there is a place for everything, stuff, thoughts, ideas, results, things good and bad, wonderful and daft.

But grand-pa,  could you continue to tell  me more of your story about nothing ?

No,  my dear,  for as you see, there is nothing in it.

But there's a very lot, grand-pa in dreaming while pretending to be a professor or one of those things, and then sharing the dreams with your students, without even mentioning that it was supposed to be ridiculous, I think.

I am glad you think,  my dear, for it is not fashionable, but very necessary.

Do you think grand-pa that they would be able to put a hood over my face, and wink at it,  and at me ?
Do they call that hood-winking ?

No,  my dear, I do not think at all that they would be able to do that; for you know the other thing God did, when He had finished all  the creation, as the Bible says and information shows (it never ''just grows" for it always has to be invented, my dear, you can't really nothing it all up, and make more ridiculous stories). The laboratory is not ridiculous, and that's where new information doesn't make itself up. It is never found at it. Thought requires mind, and the only thinking minds are alive. That is what we find.

Yes, but what other thing, grand-pa ? You believed I would be safe because of the other thing God did, apart from creating the world, and life and its kinds,  and all of that sort of thing.

The thing to rescue people from their day-dreaming, and scheming, and silly off-putting nonsenses, as they run headlong from  God.

How could He rescue them,  grand-pa, if they run headlong from them.

He can call them,  my dear. You know how  you could burst out of our holiday home in all sorts of energy when we first arrive there, and you hear your mother calling, Jennifer,  come back, you must unpack first ?

Yes grand-pa,  and so does God call people back then ?

Yes, my dear. But they don't  always listen!

Well that is their own fault. But some listen,  don't they ?

Ah yes, God gives good gifts to those who receive them, and many also even to those who would not take them if they could avoid it. But He has it all  worked out.

You mean, He thinks, grand-pa ?

Yes my dear, that is why thought is in your head, and brains for it with it,  and a spirit with those things,  and a will to push them here or there, or to follow them where they are going ...

What does He think, grand-pa?

He thinks that people who run  away should come back, and He has prepared the way, and made it so simple a little child could understand it,  and has a wonder-anti-sin medicine,  the truth,  which He can bring home to people,  even when they are away from home, on their latest escape.

Does He really love His little lost creation,  grand-pa ?

Enough, my sweet, to  die for them, He is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.

Believe what grand-pa,  and how is He the Saviour of those who won't come back ?

Why, believe HIM,  my dear, that  He is there and active and loving, the Creator who cares, and who has a way not only for atoms and molecules, but for man; and when, as now with all people, they are astray from truth, then He has a way for them to find Him and come back, and it is all prepared in advance, and is very deep and wonderful. Even those who WON'T come back, He calls, working hard; but He never  forces.

What is that way, then, is it Jesus ?

Certainly,  Just once, in the midst of all His creations, God sent the Saviour, and there isn't really any other Saviour, because God thinks, and thought it good to send His own WORD, by whom He made  all things. You see it in DNA and in the Bible, which always stands when every other idea falls.

Is it Jesus then who is coming back to judgment, grand-pa, having died for sin just once ?

Yes, my dear, He CAME as a man,  and men die on this earth, just the once.

He arose from the dead,  didn't He grand-pa, for how could God, even  as a man, stay dead, when  all life came from Him. Besides, it wouldn't be fair otherwise, since  He did not do anything wrong, so when  He had paid for those  who will receive it, His ... what do you call it ? life-cheque, He simply arose,  taking His body with Him and they saw how silly it was to worry about life, when He could take good care of it. This I believe grand-pa, for why should I doubt God who made me and gave the Bible and wrote me up into life as well! That is why you do not think these strange professors would be able to hoodwink me, isn't grandpa ?

He can keep you from  falling my dear, and I have no doubt that He will, so that having begun a good work in you, He will finish it, just as He finished the creation itself, so that we do not find it being made any more at all, today.

Am I a new creation, then grand-pa, someone made all over again.

Precisely,  my dear.

But grand-pa, why did you say earlier that it won't be long before time is up for man on this earth  ?

Ah well,  my dear,  that is another beautiful thing! You know how old cars get smelly and wobbly and raspy and a trap ? well man in his hiding life on this earth is getting like that, and he is misusing this dear old earth so much that Jesus said when the time  came, he would not even be able to live on it,  and that He would return. That's in Matthew 24.

 I hope it is soon,  grand-pa, and that many people answer His call first.

My dear little grand-daughter ...

Not so  VERY little,  grand-pa...

It is good  to be very little when you are with God, for He is very great; but it is even better not to grate on Him,  and to find what He wants and to do it.

What if someone wants  to do it just to get somewhere, you know, like your ridiculous nothing, grand-pa?

God calls that hypocrisy,  my little one.

Why ?

It is because God is love, that is, nothing different from it will He allow to move or drive or lead Him, however much He must let go the things that don't  love, if He knows them from before time, as those who won't have it.

Well, and they then ?

If you pretend to  come to God and do not love Him, since He IS love, it is like taking a trip to the Antarctic,  and stopping off on a Pacific Island and never really going there at all.

It is a sort of lie then, grand-pa ?

It is. Those who do this sort of thing are called hypocrites.

Will Jesus judge all  people then grand-pa ?

It is like hand-writing when you are very young,  my dear. It is either legible or not.

You mean,  whatever people SAY, their hearts show in the end.

Jesus can read hearts my dear, you see that in Jeremiah 17, and He is the only One who can.

But what of people who believe in Him  ?

They walk on a pathway called the Highway of Holiness.

I would love that grand-pa.

May the good God grant you your wish, and may you always walk ... just there.