There is an intrinsic problem in trying to understand God. That is that God is God and therefore beyond our experience or understanding. Our best and most sophisticated concepts and analogies inevitably reduce God to something we can handle. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, it just means that we should be careful what we claim. I find that the most helpful isn’t to describe what God is like and doing, but to point towards where we see God showing up.
So, to point in a helpful direction, I like to say God is too big for our world and wants to make us too big for it too and by blowing our minds with thinking that is too big for our world. Too big thinking resonates with and calls to us, but it can’t be managed or accomplished.
What is God’s too big thinking? I’m sure many lists of great length could be put together, but here is one I shared on Christmas Eve at Jacob’s Well that makes a lot of sense to me. What do you think?
God’s too big thinking – we see these all played out in the person of Jesus – says…
- Sacrifice, not self-interest, is the most direct route to happiness.
- Generosity, not accumulation, is the greatest source of wealth.
- Love, forgiveness and mercy are the greatest forces in our world.
- We are loved no matter how unlovable we think we are, and that
- We depend on that undeserved love no matter how deserving we think we are.
- Hope is not wishful thinking, but faith in action.
- Peace is not the absence of violence or trouble, but an active presence in the midst of life.
What makes me think that these are God-style too big is that I want them all to be true and find myself drawn to them, but have to be really honest and say that I neither truly understand, fully agree or practice any of them. I’m ready to follow a God who says they are the real thing though.
Precarious Pastor 