April 24, 2024
You’ve probably heard the saying, “God is in the details” and wondered what exactly it means. The phrase was popularized by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a German-American architect (1886-1969), who is considered a pioneer in contemporary architecture and whose credits include the Seagram Building in Manhattan, IBM Plaza in Chicago and the Martin Luther King Memorial Library in Washington DC.
What exactly do those words mean? One interpreter wrote, “It means that when attention is paid to the small things, it can have the biggest rewards and that the details matter.”
OK, but let’s look at the details a little more. Some 350 years before Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed his first building, St. Francis de Sales — who knew nothing about architecture, but a lot about God — said, “Learn to see God in the details of your life, for He is everywhere.”
A Doctor of the Church, St. Francis was known as “the Gentleman Saint, largely because of his spirit of optimism and his prodigious writings. Born into a noble family on August 21, 1567, in the Savoy region of France, he was educated in the Jesuit college of Clermont at the University of Parish and later received a doctorate in civil and canon law at the University of Padua. He defended the faith during the Protestant Reformation and was known for his practical advice to help ordinary people get closer to God — through the details.
Think about his words: “Learn to see God in the details of your life, for He is everywhere.” You’re a creation of God and infinitely more valuable than steel, glass and concrete. God — more than any architect — puts great thought into his creations, right down to the smallest details. If you take the time to reflect on the path that your life has taken, if you take the time to examine the details, including the joys, the sorrows, the suffering and the happiness, do you know what you’ll find? The finger of God.
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