Margo, Ryan, and I went to Kentucky to visit Ken Ham's creation museum (http://www.creationmuseum.org/). It took about 9 hours to get there. Our journey took us through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and then Kentucky. Margo and Ryan are good with maps so we had no problem getting there. We arrived on July 4^th. Unfortunately due to inclement weather we were not able to see any fireworks.

I was apprehensive about such a long trip to see a museum, especially one that had just opened. Of course, I wasn't expecting any glitches on the scale of those seen in the movie 'Jurassic Park' but I was wondering if this trip would be worth it. I'm happy to report that it was!

The lady at the museum with whom Margo spoke indicated that we should allow about 2 hours to see everything. We got at the museum just about when it opened (10 AM) and left when it closed (6 PM). So much for two hours!

The museum has a planetarium. We were told that this should be our first stop. No problem, as the next show started within a few minutes. While we waited we had a picture taken. This was taken against a green screen. We then had the opportunity to choose a background that consisted of about 4 choices including dinosaurs and I believe the ark.

Well, we finally got settled down in the planetarium. The show started in no time and we reclined in our comfortable chairs. I would say that the theme of the show was a journey from our local solar system to the outer reaches of the universe. A comparison was at first made of the relative distance to various objects around us. One that I found interesting was the Orion constellation. It is usually easily identified by 'Orion's Belt', a series of 3 stars. One of the stars that composes Orion is named Betelgeuse, pronounced like beetle juice I believe. It has a radius 600 times greater than our Sun! If it were in place of the Sun most of our solar system would be engulfed by it! Comparing our Sun with Betelgeuse would be like comparing a beach ball (our Sun) to a stadium!

I've always wondered about the size of the universe. Say if you went in one direction and could travel at immense speeds, how far could you go? Would you eventually run into something at the end? Is the universe shaped like a donut and you would (after going a very, very long way) end up where you started? The show didn't answer my question, but it did demonstrate one thing – the universe is LARGE!!

Afterward Margo and I discussed the show. We both came away with the same thought. Why did God make the universe so big? We suspected that if you were to ask God that question He would respond that He thought He made it too small!

As I tried to grasp the size of the universe, I wondered to myself how this should affect our prayers. I couldn't help think about the movie 'Clash of the Titans'. Sir Laurence Olivier starred as Zeus. In typical Greek & Roman god fashion, he and his wife played a game of chess with the characters. A perfect example of how the Greeks & Romans infused their man-made gods with human traits.

When we pray do we pray to the God who created the universe or do we pray to the kind of gods who sit on Mt. Olympus and play games with humans? By this I mean, do our prayers reflect a belief that the One to whom we pray is omnipotent? That our God can and does make changes in time & space that are beyond natural laws? Or do we pray to a capricious god that not only is incapable of doing any of the things the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob can do but is simply the figment of someone's imagination?

I'm sure we've all heard people pray what R.C. Sproul has dubbed the 'just' prayer. “Father, I JUST pray that You'll do this or that; I pray that Uncle Henry will JUST pull through fine after this surgery”. Get the picture of the “just” prayer? Should our prayers be more than asking for the 'minimum'? It would be the same as asking a friend, who happens to be a billionaire, for $20 to put towards a $200 debt. The billionaire is more than capable to pay the full debt. God is more than capable of doing far beyond what we can imagine. To me it seems to be almost an insult to God not to pray 'big'.

But let's not be disappointed when God doesn't answer the way we want. A perfect example of someone who 'prayed big' is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed that the 'cup would pass'. If there was anyone who knew that was not going to happen, it was Jesus. From eternity that plan had been in place, but it didn't stop Jesus from praying! I hope we'll keep our faith that our Abba, has our best concerns in mind and will answer accordingly!