The drop of water?
Spurgeon, "GOD'S ESTIMATE OF TIME"
Within the compass of a drop of water we are told that
sometimes a thousand living creatures may be discovered, and
to those little creatures, no doubt, their size is something very
important. There is a creature inside that drop which can only be
seen by the strongest microscope, but it is a hundred times larger
than its neighbor, and it feels, no doubt, that the difference is
amazing and extraordinary. But to you and to I, who cannot even see
the largest of these creatures with the naked eye, the larger
animalcule is as imperceptible as his dwarfish friend-- they both
seem so utterly insignificant that we squander whole millions of
them, and are not very penitent if we destroy them by thousands.
But what would one of those little infusorial animals say if some
prophet of its own kind could tell it that there is a 'giant being'
living that could count the 'whole world of a drop of water' as
nothing, and could take up ten thousand thousand of those drops
and scatter them without exertion of half its power; that this 'giant
being' would not be encumbered if it should carry on the tip of
its finger all the thousands that live in that great world- a drop
of water; that this 'giant being' would have no disturbance of
heart, even if the great king of one of the empires in that drop
should gather all his armies against it and lead them to battle?
Why, then the little creatures would say, "How can this be; we
can hardly grasp the idea?" But when that infusorial philosopher
could have gotten an idea of man, and of the utter insignificance
of its own self, and of its own little narrow world, then it would
have achieved an easy task, compared with that which lies
before us when we attempt to get an idea of God.
We think of the infinite nature of God in being able to marshal
all the stars, and govern all the orbs which bespangle the brow
of night; but I take it to be quite as great a wonder that he
should even know that such insignificant nothings as we humans are
in existence, much more that he should count every hair of our heads,
and not allow one of them to fall to the ground without his
express decree.
The Infinite is as much known in the 'small' as in the 'magnanimous',
and God may be as really discovered by us in the drop of water as in the
rolling orb; but this is wonderful of God-- that he even observes us!