SNS 017: How Big Is Your God?
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Show Notes
So, here is a question for you, is your God big enough? No, seriously, is your God big enough? Big enough for what? And why is that important? That is what we are going to explore here in episode 17.
My name is Charles, and this is The Simple Not Shallow Podcast. Home of The Simple Not Shallow Coffee House, a coffee house on the internet; but that’s ok, The Simple Not Shallow Coffee House. A podcast for those who want a deeper faith, not a confusing one. That is what our name is all about, keeping faith in Christ simple; simple enough that a child-like myself can understand it and yet, not so shallow, that when the storms of life hit, our faith is forced to run aground. It is for those who want their faith… to be like a good cup of coffee. That is, simple, strong, full of flavor, and richly satisfying. Just like this cup of French roast, I am enjoying now. Richly satisfying.
Take your time and sip on this.
So, is your God big enough? Another way to ask this is, who do you understand God to be? Does this seem like a strange question to you? I mean, God is God, right?
Here is why I ask. I have found that people only ever practice their religion based on who they understand God to be. Which is to say, how they allow themselves to relate to God and then put that relationship into practice in their daily lives. Which, by the way, includes how they relate to other people.
Whether you look judgmentally down your nose at those doing wrong or are so emotionally sympathetic that you can see that no one is doing anything that wrong or you are somewhere in between. You are only living out what your perception of God will let you live out, religiously speaking. Whether you try to live out every single lesson in the Bible, to the letter, or you think that as it was written to a people so long ago that most of it really doesn’t apply; as we have come a long way since then. Or again, are you somewhere in the middle? All this is decided by who you understand God to be. Jesus even seems to indicate this when he says that when we are trained, we will be like our master (Luke 6:40). So, once again, let me ask you, how big do you understand God to be? Who is God to you?
“God is God,” you say. “He is the Ultimate God, the Only God, the God over the whole universe.” Ok, what else? Is that all you truly know? While this may sound counter-intuitive, that actually sounds like a pretty small God to me. For if that is all God is to you, then you have one that you can put in a little box and call it done. For then you need to give no more thought to such a remote and removed God. He is up there somewhere, far removed from your daily life. Oh, he is over your daily life, to be sure. But he is also removed and detached from it as well. So, while this is a good start, I find it, as a whole, as a whole definition of who God is, to be a bit of an understatement, really, and way too impersonal.
“Well,” you might say, “He is also holy, perfect, just, self-existing, eternal, sovereign, righteous, and wise.” Yea, I would agree with that. But as a holistic understanding of God, I don’t know; I mean, while this is better and richer than only understanding God to be God, the one and only God. I still find it to be a bit lacking. It is also one that I find too small and still too impersonal. If this is all you know God to be, then your practice of religion will tend to be judgmental and harsh. And to be honest, it cannot help but be so; as there is nothing in this understanding to soften the harshness.
How can I say this? How can I say that God the one and only, God the righteous ruler, God the Just, the Sovereign is too small of a God? Well, I am not saying that. I am not saying that he is too small. Rather, what I am saying is that if that is all you know of him, if that is the sum total of your understanding of who he is, that is what is too small. And your religious life will reflect this, it will never be as abundant or as richly satisfying as he means for it to be.
“Oh,” you might be saying, “I suppose you are now going to say that he is only all love, mercy, graciousness, and forgiveness. Right? And that unless we see him that way, we’re being too small, right? That’s what you mean isn’t it?” No, that is not what I mean. For if that is your only understanding of God, that he is only about love, forgiveness, and mercy, then your understanding of God is also much too small; too small and this time instead of harsh, merely mushy. And your faith will also be small and mushy. So no, that is not what I am saying.
See, any of these understandings, isolated and by themselves, will allow you to put God in a nice neat little religious box. You bring him out when you need or want something from him and keep him out of sight and out of mind when you don’t. You always know exactly what other people have to do, you will know what you don’t have to do, and you will know what makes religious experience authentic. And you will know that any experience not matching your own quickly becomes suspect. Everything is all very prim and proper, is in its place, is all wrapped up with a nice little bow, and, because of this, religion tends to be seen as right and wrong, in black and white.
Yea, well…. I have found very few things in this life that tend to be black and white. Especially when it comes to relationships. There is simply way too much, in relationships, that resides in the area of the grey for us to not learn how to navigate through it. Why am I talking about relationships? Since God is a relational God, how can we not? And since we human beings are involved in this relationship with God, this relationship will have more than its fair share of grey areas as well. For it is in the grey that we are forged into strong adults; into the men and women, God would have us be. And we need a God who is big enough to guide us through these areas as we learn to love.
So, is your understanding of God big enough to allow him to be the God of the grey? Is your God big enough that he cannot be contained in a small box of the small box of black and white? What is my understanding of God? Fair enough.
He is God, the one and only. He is love and he is just. He is righteous and he is merciful. He is forgiving and he is sovereign. He is perfect and he is gracious. He is omni - everything and he is good. He is the complete and total package. He is all of this altogether and is never anything less. Because of this: righteousness is not righteousness without love; love is not love without righteousness. Justice is not justice without mercy; mercy is not mercy without justice. Sovereignty is not sovereignty without graciousness and graciousness is not graciousness without sovereignty. To deny or ignore any aspect of who God is is to make God smaller than he is. I mean, we don’t actually reduce the size of God in any way, that would be silly, nor we do not truly take anything away from him. But we do limit our relationship with him by choosing to not relate to him as he truly and fully is. Think about it, do you ever truly get to know somebody else, anybody here on this earth, by purposefully ignoring parts of who they are? That only creates a caricature. It does nothing about truly get to know that person.
I guess there is a simpler way of saying who God is to me if I were to condense all this down to just a sentence or two. I think I would say that God, to me, is the relational God of growing up. The God of learning to live in love; in love with him, with our entire being, and with my neighbors as myself. Which does involve relationships and relationships, by their very nature, seldom if ever allow for the limitations of the black and white. There is simply way too much grey. He is the God of the grey. Is your God big enough to be the God of the grey? He wants to be.
So, love simply, love wisely, love well, and allow God to show you just how limited your current understanding of him has been. I almost said that you may know just how truly big he is, but I don’t think our little minds will ever fully know the infinite God. No more than a swimmer with a mouth full of seawater fully knows the vastness and the depths of the ocean.
Well, what do you think? I’d love to hear from you, so please, go to simplenotshallow.com, and under the Simple Not Shallow Podcast section, find this episode, #16. I now have a page that says, Choose the Episode, click on this episode and leave a comment for me there. Also, in the show notes, I’ll list all the verses I referenced, in the transcript that I’ve posted. And I will list them at the location in the transcript at which I referenced them. That way you can check me out to make sure I’m not making any of this up. For while I am a rather creative individual, I never want to be that creative. Also, please take a second to rate this episode and subscribe to this podcast through the podcast service of your choice. You know, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify. iHeartRaido, or whichever service you prefer. That way, you can take the podcast with you, wherever you want to go. When you are driving your car, going to work, taking your morning jog, walking your dog. However, whenever, wherever. Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll catch you next time.