A Very Big God

I have felt for some time that God is bigger than I have given him credit for. And so I have made it a point for years to really stretch myself and get to know the God of the scriptures. It has become a passion of mine to separate what man has taught me about God from what the scriptures actually teach about God. Not that those two are always different, but they often are. Man, by nature it seems, tries to define and explain who God is and what he will and won't do, maybe because that helps them keep their faith when God doesn't respond the way they want him to. And then we come along and add our own interpretation to what man says about God and think we have a clear picture. For example, when you hear a pastor say, "God hates divorce," what do you really hear? Most people hear, "God hates those who are divorced." It may not be a conscious thought until we find ourselves in that category, and then it can be devastating. But what does God's word say? God's word doesn't make any distinction about divorce saying it is any worse than any other sin that breaks his heart. The thing he hates most about divorce is the pain and suffering it brings to everyone involved, and how far this is from the joy he intended marriage and family to be. And how much more pain and suffering are added when we think God hates us because we are divorced? Or how about a definition of God that says, "He doesn't do that anymore. That was in the Old Testament before Jesus came to live in our hearts." Or, "That was in the early church when miracles were needed to get it established and help it grow." Doesn't it seem that we have shrunk God down to our own finite definitions of who he is and how he will behave and when? Does that seem wrong to anyone besides me? I read these words somewhere recently: We’ve shrunk God with conditions and expectations ~ we’ve taken his grandness and washed him in the hot water of fear and logic until he’s shrunken and small ~ God is bigger than we can grasp. I think more of us need to go back to studying ~ really studying ~ the scriptures for ourselves, and let God's Holy Spirit speak to our hearts about who he is, what he wants us to know about himself as he reveals it. I don't think we can ever define God, who is infinite, with our minds which are finite. I don't think we can ever say, "sure he could do that, but he won't, he just doesn't do those things anymore." I say, let God be God. Let him surprise me with his mercy, surprise me with his blessings, surprise me with his power, surprise me with his grace, any time he wants to. I say, come to God as a child comes, without definitions and limitations, just lay out for him all that you are and think and want, and let him do with it what he will. And then be satisfied with his response, knowing that his heart toward you is good and his love for you is beyond your understanding. Even when God says no, we can know that it is out of his loving heart for reasons of his own, and not because our faith is small or we have hidden sin or he loves us less than someone else. These are some of my thoughts today. I just love God. For who he is, and not for who I think he is or who I want him to be. Just for who he is. And his love surprises me every day. God is bigger than we can grasp.

By God's oh-so-amazing grace,
From the Rewritten Princess