How About "Compact" People?

We live in a day of miniaturization. We have mini-cars, mini-skirts, mini-subs. Our new technology directs us towards smaller things…smaller cameras, smaller computers, tiny motors, so small they can be used for medical research and therapy in the blood stream of our bodies.

A man by the name of Donald Allen suggested that perhaps we ought to develop a race of mini-people, and with tongue in cheek, suggested that with the shortages of food and energy and space, a race of people about 18” tall could help a lot…less food consumption, plenty of housing and living space, and maybe even abolish war. His theory was that we might not be able to hit one another, if we were so small!

There is a fascinating geological phenomenon of small fossils. In an outcropping of rock called the Macquoketa shale that shows up here and there all over the world, fossils are always miniatures…crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods, etc. They are not babies, but full-grown mature adults. No one seems to know for sure why this is the case. It appeared to be a kind of Lilliputian stage in our world’s history.

I don’t know whether “compacting” people is the answer. In many ways, big or little is not the point. God did not make us Mini-People, but we are a “Compact” people. It was not a miniaturizing process, but a covenanting one. God is our Father, and we are to be His children. This is what we are and this is the way we were made, and this makes a world of difference. It is not my size physically that matters, but the size of the man inside.

Counselors tell us that failure to know who we are is one of the primary causes of delinquency. Children and teen-agers who do not really know themselves, who are not grounded in a knowledge of why they are here, and where they are going, are at the center of the crime problem.

Some children are in homes, like balls in a pool table, being knocked about in all directions. They are not loved, nor does anyone really seem to care. They think they must be a nuisance, a problem, so that is what they become.

I am a child of God, I was made in His image, and I belong to Him. Therefore, whether I live in “ticky tacky houses” in the suburbs or in a high-rise apartment “filing cabinet for people”, or whether I live in rural America, as long as I know that I am a child of God, and belong to Him, life can have meaning.

We do not need smaller people, but people who know that they have a God who is larger than any problem that may come. Years ago, God shook up this world to let us know who we are. He took a cross, and wrote a letter saying how much He loved us, and signed it with His blood. That’s how I have the assurance that I am a “compact” person.