I've been thinking a lot this week about how we try so hard to keep God in a box. I think everyone is guilty of this to some extent. Because we all have expectations and hopes and desires and we want God to fit those or meet those or behave a certain way.When I was little, I went to a rather strict Baptist church (no pants, girls!). It's pretty easy to see how they boxed God in. God is a certain way, He does certain things, He allows and doesn't allow certain behavior. It was a very small box for God to live in. It was an easy box to see.
Now that I don't belong to such a strict branch of Christianity, I like to think that I don't box God in. That I am ready to see Him however He is. But that's not always true. Sometimes, I want God to look a certain way. Sometimes, I want Him to behave a certain way. Sometimes, I say, "God does or doesn't do that thing." But is it true?
In a lot of ways, I think this is what separates many of the "flavors" of Christianity. Our beliefs that God is or isn't a certain way, that He does or doesn't do certain things. We get so stuck in these places, that we splinter off. We start our own church where we DO NOT do infant baptism, or where we DO NOT drink alcohol or where the communion IS the actual flesh of Jesus. We create boxes for God and then we separate ourselves from those who have different God-boxes.
There are many things that we know about God for sure. He is good, just, merciful, jealous, love. We also know many things about what He will and will not do. He will accept the repentant sinner. He will always love us, no matter what. He will always keep His promises. I think we get confused, though. I know I certainly do. I think that because I understand certain aspects of God's character or because I have seen God work in a certain way before, I know how He will do something or I know what He thinks about something. But do I?
My best friend and I were talking today about how the more you know someone, the more dangerous miscommunication becomes. You start to understand how the other person works and what they do and what they like. They start to understand you in the same way. Then you begin to assume. You assume that they will know you feel a certain way. After all, you know each other so well. How could they not know how you feel? I can't believe they didn't know! Do they even know me at all? Are we even really friends??? Suddenly, the joy of familiarity transforms into the bitter disappointment of unmet expectations. We think we know someone, or that they know us, so we stop asking, we stop talking. We stop communicating clearly, and then we are disappointed and disenchanted and downright hurt when they somehow miss our unspoken expectation.
Don't we do that to God all the time? I know people who have been looking for God for a long time. But everytime they catch a glimpse of Him, He doesn't look like they want Him to look. So they keep looking. Or we start to feel really comfortable with God, and we ask for something, and God doesn't respond the way we assume He will. So we miss it entirely. Or worse, we feel like He has betrayed us.
I've heard it said that God never does the same thing twice. Why would He? If you were creative enough to design this fantastical world that we live in, why would you ever repeat yourself exactly? We have to be so careful. We can't keep God in a box. Any box. He is too big for that. And when we try to put Him in a box crafted of our own expectations and our own opinions, we are the ones who truly lose out on discovering more about our fathomless Father.
1 comments:
I'm having about 10,000 reactions to your blog. :)
My main reaction is that wanting to "bust God out of the box" is a distinctly human drive because we get bored easily and want excitement and newness.
If you look at how God revealed Himself to the Israelites, He moved fantastically. Burning bushes, cloud pillars, etc. But what He handed down to the Israelites was very specific and detailed. It involved lifestyle, traditions, etc. He did not, by any stretch of the imagination, say, "Go forth now and just have one heck of a time doing whatever you want in order to worship Me."
For only the last 500-600 years have we even had the ability to sit down and read Scripture in print en masse. Up to that point, it was only the Church and its traditions that pointed back faithfully to the Apostles.
With some, if not most organizations, it really doesn't matter much what the founder(s) intended. What an organization looks like today may or may not reflect the original founder's intentions but that doesn't matter much because it addresses the desires of the day and has been changed by outside influences, inside influences, etc.
After pondering and praying about this, I came to the conclusion that, in re: to the Church that Jesus started, it DOES matter, deeply, what His intentions were. What traditions were important to Him? How did He want us to be close to Him? Looking at how there are innumerable "versions" and translations of the Bible, how can we take for granted that we are not deceiving ourselves with our desire for infinite change and excitement?
You mention the actual flesh of Jesus, for instance, which is not a "new church start-up". Rather, it's how many people documented their understanding of Jesus' statement within the recent years of Jesus' ministry. (I put some quotes in one of my recent blogs from this documentation.)
"Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me."
In my estimation, it matters what He meant by this. It matters that this is how Jesus said we should know him and live IN him. It's a big deal. When I started thinking about this, I realized,
"How can I go to the Baptists, for instance, or the Protestants in order to understand what Jesus meant by this?"
I wouldn't ask the new CEO of Microsoft exactly what was on Bill Gates' heart when he started the company. But I can get as close as I can...I can read his diary, read the letters of his closest friends and followers and try to figure that out.
I agree we should never box God in. But for the boxes that God Himself established, we should consider them carefully.
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