God is big

Summary:
1A) do not ask yourself "what if god were different?"
1B) if God vanished...
1C) god is real whether you feel like it or not
2) people are ugly, god inside them is beautiful
3) Ecclesiastes: a time for everything


1A)
Do not ask yourself, "what if god were different?". There is no slot called 'god' which we can put something into. God is God and there is no other. Who is like him? Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Try listening to "God is God" by Steven Curtis Chapman.

1B)
if God vanished, we wouldn't notice. Let me explain.
if God vanished...the world would NOT:
continue on with no effect
run down slowly over several thousand years
descend into anarchy and debauchery in a decade
be engulfed in celestial calamity within hours
destroy the human mind with anguished void in minutes
disintegrate in seconds
vanish in a flash
cease to exist

there would be a snap of fingers, simultaneously accompanied by impending void such that the snap would be cut off halfway. nay, the snap would not occur, because the world would have ceased before then. there would be no space left, not even a void, because nothing would be left possible to imagine that could fill the void. there would be no absence. not even a pressure-less darkness. imagine a flash of light between your eyes on your forehead, so fast you never would perceive it, and then absolutely nothing. there is no darkness, no wondering why you don't feel anything.
on the instant and even before...

1c)
a friend found this statement encouraging: "God is real whether you believe him or not." sometimes we get depressed and question God's existence. The great thing about those times is God doesn't change based on what we're going through. He loves us to death, so he will help us along in those times, but by no means does he drop out of the picture as we question his existence. He's real! Ok? that means he does things. He's a person. "behold! I stand at the gate..."

2)
thank the lord for your awesome friends, because they wouldn't be that way without the work of the lord. this mentality reminds you that God deserves all the credit, and that your friends are still fallible humans who have problems and need love and the gospel just like you do. it also prevents idolization.

3)
the passage in the beginning of Ecclesiastes 3 "there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to..."
it seems really mundane at first. I think "of course there are appropriate times for things". but then I come across phrases like "a time to love and a time to hate", and "a time to scatter stones and a time go gather them" and things get strange. the one that kills my heart the most is "a time to embrace and a time to refrain"
footnotes explain that this string of 'times' only indicates the transient passage of events on earth and human activity. but then why the 'to'? as an action/order/in the future? I think we can translate "a time to..." as "a time in which god tells us to..." or "a time when we must..."
Actually, we could translate it both ways. The first sense is without god, the hopelessness/meaninglessness. The second is with God.
the end of Ecclesiastes (I quote this a lot) "Now all has been heard and here is the conclusion of the matter: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."
keep in mind that God is the provider of all good things