“He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.” (Psalms 147:4 KJV)
“…he calleth them by their names.” One of the key technologies that has taken an individual PC forward is networking. It’s the ability of one machine to talk with and work with another. It allows for shared resources like printing, file storage, a database, and so much more. In order to be able to share resources and come together for a common task, there has to be some type of addressing and name resolution process. In most networks public and private it’s called a domain name system or dns for short. We effectively do the same thing while networking in social, business, or government circles. We try to either make a name for ourselves or determine who is who and what their specialties are. It is common to develop a pattern of associating names with faces, names with addresses, names with financial backing, or names with authoritative positions in government. It is true that good communication is essential for good networking and that communication relies on good addressing and name resolution.
With the release of Active Directory, dns went beyond simple name resolution. It now had services like authentication, time coordination, key service redirection, and an underlying ability to communicate who was in charge of the global catalog for all this information. It took determining who is who to the next levels. It allows an internal network to tighten it’s loop in determining who is trusts and who it will communicate with and who it will direct specific tasks to first. By having a main system of DNS servers with cached copies dotted throughout the remote site locations for quick reference, meaning and order can be given to a network that used to simply be full of chatter. It is not uncommon for very large corporations to have directory systems that handle tens if not hundreds of thousands of objects. It is also not uncommon for capacity planning systems to test object directory systems well into the billions. Yet, no matter how many billions of stars there are, no matter how many billions of people there are, and no matter how many needs and grievances are laid flat before the throne of God; He knows their number and can call them by name. How incumbent upon us is it to make God our central system for name resolution? If we could see others as He sees them… If we could stop trying to construct our own networking systems and learn to simply use His as authoritative… If we could present ourselves as a cached copy of His directory structure so that the remote places that we are located in could have good access to the best name and address resolution information… Our God is amazing. We become more like Him when we reflect Him rather than try to reconstruct something that He already does quite well.
“Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.” (Psalms 147:5 KJV)