Your God is Too Small

I heard that phrase once. "Your God is Too Small" (and I think it's the title of a book, but I'm not positive on that one.)  But I heard it said and much to my amusement, as I look back now, I had instantly pictured myself standing before God and all I could see was the tip of his finger. (please, picture it with me. :) No matter which way or how far I tilted or turned my head, there was this never-ending finger. He was huge when I thought of Him that way. Haha. But even on that line of thinking, the way I imagined him was too small. He's bigger than my imagination could possibly conjure up. Go ahead, imagine God however you will, but then realize that how you see Him is much too small, far too weak, and way too simple compared to how He really is.


Now, speaking in terms that are less...literal, I suppose, your God is too small.  How do you know that the God that you have a relationship with is too small in your head? Well, what are you doing that you don't think God could handle? None of us would actually saaaaay that, though. It would be like saying, "God, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to back outa this one, I got this. Don't worry, chill out, take a break, and I can handle this." But we say this all the time. If you are thinking "what?! I do not!", let me ask you when was the last time you knew you ought to pray or seek God about something, but didn't. -


--- For example, I've been making college plans, stressing over them, and thinking about what I would like to do, etc. I kneeeeew I should have been seeking God for these plans, and actively trusting Him with my worries, but frankly, I forgot to pray. I forgot/didn't a lot. (You can ask my mom, it's true.) But when I didn't go to my Father about this area of my life, my actions were telling him that I was trying to handle it myself.  Whether we say "God, I got this." out loud or think it or not, when we don't trust God for EVERYTHING, we undermine who He really is, how big He is, how powerful, great, wonderful, mighty, just, loving, caring, gracious, etc. because we either like to do it ourselves, errantly thinking that we can do it best, or  because our minds are lazy, we have stopped trying to realize the extent of who God is.


I can look at an algebra problem/equation (sorry to bring math up, since I know we just got out of school.) and be instantaneously overwhelmed by the x's, y squared's, formidable decimals, something cubed or to the nth power divided by some symbol that means something else, and of course they want to graph it eventually....and then a whole string of directions about what to do...  I would stare at it for a moment, start hyperventilating, and then run for the nearest inhaler (at least..I would if I had asthma...). I probly hadn't even picked up the pencil yet, but I would already be ready to give up. -----  To say the obvious, God is bigger than that algebra nightmare, but at that time I'm having some trouble seeing past it. If something like that (or anything material, emotional, mental, spiritual, or relational) seems too big for you or me, we are thinking too small. Not that we could ever think big enough, but when I realize that my God is bigger than everything else in size, power, importance, or whatever, it puts things into perspective, and I am compelled (in a good way) to worship Him as He made me to do.


We are called to worship him. Why? Because he is worthy. How is he worthy? Look around you. He created all that. In the beginning...he said "let there be light, and there WAS LIGHT." Who else do you know who can simply speak things into existence? 
No really, who? Being in awe of God is worship. Not that we will ever ever grasp the awesomeness of God, but worship is trying. Worship can be you in the bathtub with water scalding your skin and you trying to dodge the boiling drops of liquid as you reach for the knob to make it cooler, but you think, "Wow. Wow. The nerves in my skin work great! Wow, God, You made that. I don't get how they work, but they work! and You do know how! Wow."
 Worships is getting to know Him better, worship is doing what He did, and worship is looking at a situation/circumstance and saying, "God, I know you are even bigger than that. So I'm gonna trust you with it and obey you in it, because YOU are bigger than I can fathom." God is indeed bigger (and many many more other adjectives) than we give Him credit for, so let's give Him the credit/the worship he deserves, and stop trying to handle our things in our lives ourselves.

Windows to the World

Ok, since it's my style to just jump in and get to my point, here is a quick intro to what I'm gonna be talking about here:


I was driving home from work in a certain '91 Pontiac 6000 LE (also known as "Google" -If you can figure that one out ;), and as I was praying and asking God to help me see things as He does, etc. I got a picture in my head that was of people walking around in boxes. In one side of each person's box was a window that they could look through. This idea applied directly to what I was praying about, but I think it also applies more broadly to all of us, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to share.


People walking around in their little boxes, viewing the world through their little windows... I felt that the boxes themselves are the lives we put ourselves in, the patterns of thinking, and they determine how open we are to accepting things outside of our "little worlds" or in this case -boxes. But the window is the detail I want to focus on more, here. Some people's windows were bigger or smaller than someone else's. Some windows may be foggy or cracked and inhibit how well someone can see through it. 


Now the problem ISN'T that someone's "window to the world" might be big or small or more clear glass or cracked, or dirty, or whatever. I repeat, that is not the problem. The problem isn't that they have windows. Every person HAS a window -aka, a limited view. They can only see what is in front of them.  The real problem lies in when we think that our perspective (what we see out of our windows) is all there is. When we think that how we see it is how it is, that we comprehend a whole situation, and that there are no other angles to be covered or things that we might be missing. When we do that, we make ourselves gods.

However, the truth about this is that God is the only one who sees the whole picture, he doesn't even HAVE  window because he sees EVERYTHING. his perspective is the only one that matters, because it is HIS universe. Nothing is hidden from Him. He created us as finite human beings and we have limited viewpoints. Our windows are little and we tend to be blinded by them, though we often think that we see things the right way. But that is us putting ourselves on a higher level than we are. When we think we see it how it is, we are are trying to be God.

Look at the world and all the chaos created by people walking around thinking they know best...

The ways we see things (situations, events, and other people, opinions, etc) separate us from each other. We each walk around in our own little boxes, bumping into or off of things that get in our way, going through them, or around them. 

Windows = perspectives. So my question for you as well as myself, is "What is shaping your perspective?" Fears, your temper, your prejudices, hate, jealousy, love? Blinding love that keeps you from seeing the truth? Love of self, money, or some other person? Is it mercy, compassion, or what? Think about it. The list could go on and on.


I don't know about you, but for myself, I do not want to live my life in a blind little box with a crack of a window. I would rather step out of my box, live life out loud, unhidden, and open. I want to have a broad perspective, but I want to also always know that God is the only one who sees it all -and in that, TRUST Him for everything since He does see everything. Since He is that One who is in control and isn't limited in any way. 


My prayer about this is that those of us who call ourselves that people of God would take up His perspective on every matter we encounter in our lives and that we would trust Him for what we think we see and what we don't.

A Piece of Canvas

A Piece of Canvas

I am a piece of canvas...

Once blank, but am no more

I have been put to use, you see,

Here spread out on the floor

I am a piece of canvas

Dirty, marred, and stained

I keep the foot-prints off the wood,

and catch stray drips of paint

I am a piece of canvas

I've laid here quite awhile

The brushes, cans and other tools

In heaps, on me, are piled

I am a piece of canvas

Feeling lonely, used, unseen

Until You come and pull me out

And wash me until I'm clean

I am a piece of canvas!

I'm clean! A stunning white

Whatever use He puts me to

I know it will be right

I am a piece of canvas

Hoisted high onto a mast

I'm stretched and taught, a useful thing!

And waves below me crash

I am a piece of canvas

Angled full into the breeze

The thrills, the gusts, the waves, the sky!

I fit this perfectly.

-By Enna

The Inside Revealed

"...surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is?...If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am..." -C.S.Lewis Mere Christianity


Ok, my mom told me about this quote and I had to find it for myself. I did, and had to stew on it for awhile. But this is what I have been thinking concerning this quote:


What C.S. Lewis is saying here is that the yucky stuff inside of us is best and most accurately revealed before we have time to put a mask/disguise to cover up the bad stuff inside us. His words make me picture myself going to my basement door and opening it and flicking the light on just in time to see a hundred rats dashing for cover. (Imagine scenes from the move Ratatouille instead of your own basement, if you prefer, but the point of it being YOUR basement IS kind of important here.) Anyway, I can't help being somewhat disgusted by discovering how infested my house is when I see the rodents (can you say "understatement"?). But now I have a choice. 


Option number uno- I can turn the light back off, shut the door and move a bookshelf in front of it to hide the door....until the next time I need a can of peaches.


Option number dos- I can dash for the bathroom, wash my hands four times in a row as if I had touched one of the creatures and tear off in search of the phone and the number for the nearest exterminator.


OBVIOUSLY, the second ("dos", por ese puebas quien no tienes la ablilidad leer espanol) is the better of the two. I daresay embarrassing for about a week when all my friends might be saying "Soooo, I saw an exterminator pull into your driveway the other day and he was parked there for a looooong time...what was THAT about??", but in the long run, I will be rat-free and have learned a valuable lesson about keeping the depths and rarely viewed parts of my house in order. But if I went with the first, I would STILL have rats. I may not seeeeee them, but the problem is still there regardless. 


In the same way, things like tempers, prejudices, hate, profane language, and all those other negative things in our ever-so-human characters are like the rats in the cellar. We can hide them all we want, but sooner or later, those issues will be revealed. And when they are it reveals what is REALLY inside us, what is in our deep places. The "provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am", C.S. Lewis says. So then instead of putting a fake covering over our issues, how much better for us would it be (in the long run) to deal with, reject, train ourselves away from, confess, and learn from our "ill temper"edness, etc. 


I'm NOT saying that you need to perfect yourself. HA! What happens when imperfect things try to perfect things? There isn't much hope of perfection with that...Instead, invite the Perfect to help you! His grace is sufficient for the worst of tempers, the deepest of hate, and the most ugly of prejudices, so we have no excuse to keep them.


[Sort of a side note here- a point that says alot thanks to Rick Hein: Similarly(because of our reactions revealing what is in us) to what C.S. Lewis was saying,  when there are troubles in our lives, it tell us what we are about by however we react. Do we run to God and desire His glory above everything, or do we say "Oh GOD!  Just take it away!" ? If we respond by asking God to remove troubles from our lives, it reveals that we are really are about ourselves, our own comfort, or own agendas, etc. ]


To close, I heard an analogy one time of: If you step on a rose, a sweet aroma will fill the room. Likewise, if you step on a skunk...an aroma fills the room with that smell too. My hope is for you and for myself, that if I am stepped on, that good, pleasant things will come out, instead of ugly things. 

Question: Not too Hot, Not too Cold = ?

Answer: Lukewarm (yeah, so you might have heard that term before, read on.)

Note: The excerpts I have used are from the book Crazy Love byt Francis Chan (mainly the chapter "The Profile of the Lukewarm" (which is a self-evaluation tool. I repeat "SELF-evaluation). Other excerpts as marked are from the Bible. I found this very helpful for myself, so maybe you will, too:

"Lukewarm people tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they car more aboutwhat people think of their action (like church attendance and giving ) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives" (pg69).

What people think versus what God thinks...hmmmm. Which one carries more weight? Also, God is concerned with the HEART. (The reasons/motives behind what we do, our passions, our attentions, what we desire and love and what matters to us.)

"Lukewarm people are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act..." (pg70)

"Anyone who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins" (James 4:17). Nuf said.

"Lukewarm people gauge their morality or "goodness" by camparing themselves to the secular world. They feel satisfied that while they aren't as hard-core for Jesus as so-and-so, they are nowhere as horribe as the guy down the street" (pg72).

"The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men -robbers, evil-doers, adulterers- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get' " (Luke 18:11-12).

It's like saying, "God, thank you that I am not as bad as [insert name here]. That person has issues, sins alot, and is such a faker."  Now instead of being genuinly grateful for being rescued out of sin, we are judging others. :/ (btw, that's not good.) Kind of like if the thought crosses our minds "well i could be worse" or even somthing like "at least I'm still a virgin" -we're making ourself out to be better than we are/not feeling bad about current sin in our lives/and we are certainly not filled with a desire to be more like God. 

"Lukewarm people love others but do not seek to love others as much as they love themselves. Their love of others is typically focused on those who love them in return, like family, friends, and other people they know and connect with. There is litle love left over for those who cannot love them back, much less for those who intentionally slight them , whose kids are better thletes than teirs, or with whom conversations are awkwerd or uncomfortable. Their love is highly conditional and very selective, and generally comes with strings attached." (pg73).

For me this passage was a big "ouch". I was forced to consider how many times I had avoided so-and-so because of potential discomfort, judged someone, been hurt and my first impulse was to withdraw my love for them, or make conditions on my love. I can remember actually thinking "well i will love them if..." Immediately, in this context the two letter word "if" slaps conditions on our love for someone. Just imagine if Jesus had done that when He thought of us... point is God's love is unconditional, sacrificial, and open to us. If we aren't going to be lukewarm, the the "who, how, when, and why" we love others must be the way God loves. THis is how He showed his love: while we still despised Him, He DIED for us. 

"You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate you enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven." (matt5:43).

[Mental wheels are turning...hmm. maybe I'll write more on love itself at a later time. lol]

If we love God (... yes I actually did say "if") then we will want to do what He does and what He wants us to. Let me change the wording slightly: WHEN we love God, we actually DO do the things God does and wants us to. We don't do things first, we do things in response to what He has already done. 

"Jesus replied: ' Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' this is the first and greatest commandment" (matt22:37)

God wants all of us. Every fiber of our being, every breath we breathe, every thought to be for Him, every want and desire to be centered on HIM. Not however much we think is "enough to get us into heaven". lame. He is not satisfied for us to lukewarm. He wants us to love Him with our heart, soul, and mind.

I hope maybe you have gotten something helpful out of this. I recommend Crazy Love to you.