#212. Shrinking God.
May 9th by JonWe make God small sometimes. We don’t mean to. I mean in our heads we know He is big and massive. We know He created the Rockies and Switzerland and the manatee. We know His power and grace stretches across the fabric of history but we still find ways to shrink Him down.
It happens for a lot of reasons, but one is because doubt is easier than faith. Doubt springs forth with natural momentum, faith takes effort. Even when good things happen to me, I immediately start waiting for the other shoe to drop. I treat good things like teenagers treat quiet scenes in horror movies. I walk into the good and say, “Hello, is anyone there? It’s good in here, too good.” And then I wait for something horrible to come back into the picture. Because I doubt God can sustain the good in my life. He is not big enough. I do it constantly with this site. When friends ask me about it or the book I always say, “It’s going well but we’ll see.” The phrase “we’ll see” is my way of saying, “good things don’t last. God is not big enough to do the things I would like to do. He is small.”
But then something happened.
An MIT professor made God bigger for me. That wasn’t his intention. He was trying to stretch the Bose brand. They make Wave Radios and other stereo equipment. He was frustrated that writers like me were not taking any chances with the advertising. He was disappointed that we were not taking any risks and the writing we created was flat, lifeless and boring.
His biggest issue was that we were making his brand, the very soul of his company, very, very small. And he decided to explain the problem in a simple way that ultimately changed how I look at God.
Dr. Bose said that his brand was like a soccer field. It was big and wide, with large expanses for us to creatively play around in. And he wanted us to. He wanted us to explore every inch of that large field. But, when he communicated his vision to his second in command, that person got a little scared. They didn’t want to go out of bounds, to stumble passed the boundaries and get in trouble with Dr. Bose, so they drew the lines for the soccer field a few feet smaller than Dr. Bose had. That way, if they went over their own lines, they were still a few feet from Dr. Bose’s. And when the third in command got his instructions from the second in command, she was afraid to step over the second in command’s boundaries, so she drew the lines a little smaller. And then the fourth in command drew them smaller. And the fifth in command did the same thing and so on and so on until the brand finally got to me.
By the time I got it, the brand had been whittled to about the size of a postage stamp, which left me very little room to be creative. What I would end up writing was a disappointment to Dr. Bose because I clearly hadn’t explored his whole soccer field. I was stuck in a little one foot by one foot tuft of grass trying my best, but suffocating nonetheless under the rules and regulations that had been layered on by each person that had touched the brand.
I don’t think it’s crazy to draw a parallel with the way we treat God sometimes. I think that it’s easy to read the Bible, get a little nervous and pull the reins in on life. I think sometimes the picture we hand to people of God’s love and forgiveness has been downsized by our concern to stay within the bounds, versus play within the field. Our pastor gets a small field from his seminary professor who got a small field from their Board of Directors who got a small field from the Board of Trustees who got a small field from someone else and by the time you get it on a Sunday morning during service, God is microscopic.
It’s easy to do, and you can see it with things like the verse that says “Nothing can separate us from God’s love.” We start to think that he didn’t really mean nothing. I mean “nothing” is so huge. We should rein that in a little so that we don’t mess up. So let’s add some conditions to nothing. And all sins are equal but are they really? We should probably put some small conditions around that one too. Now that I think of it, 10 commandments was a good start, but it’s not enough. Let’s add a few. Let’s follow the 30 commandments. And the whole, “love God, love yourself, love your neighbor” thing can’t really be the most important things we need to do. That sounds too simple. Let’s expand that a little.
And on and on until 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 manageable and wee.
God is bigger than we can grasp. He has a soccer field the size of the universe for us to explore. He wants us to play. I want us to play. I want run through every inch of his soccer field. I hope you want to run too.
Next time someone tries to make him small, remember the lesson from Dr. Bose and refuse to accept a postage stamp God.
Comments
God IS big! He is all powerful and utterly amazing. He is mine and he is with me everywhere I go.
We DO need to remind ourselves of this everyday! You’ve really made me think about ways I may have shrunk (lol) God!
Great post!
What a gorgeous post. Beautifully said–thanks for saying it!
“God is bigger than we can grasp. He has a soccer field the size of the universe for us to explore. He wants us to play.”
“refuse to accept a postage stamp God”
Dude that is so spot on! It is honestly so easy to do, and I think that this is driven mostly because, as you said, we don’t want to go over the line. Sometimes we live in fear that if we go too far then God might not bless us or we might need correction which most of us aren’t so keen on.
I love the last sentence – it is so challenging and important to remember, God loves us so much that He wants the best for us, not some small, meansly life that wants to stay out of trouble. Thanks for the continued challenge.
Well done, Jon.
man, this was an awesome post! God is way bigger than our minds can conceive. thanks for posting!
this was a great post!! i think i have been shrinking God to a postage stamp lately. i have had a fear of stepping out of bounds, but the last sentence of your post was really what sealed the deal. God wants us to play on his soccer field….and I am ready to play!
I think this does explain why certain ministries who do things outside of the box are condemned by many in the church even when they are fulfillig the commands of Jesus.
xxxchurch.com is one such ministry that comes to mind.
That’s what I’m talkin bout baby! God is bigger than the boogie man. And who knows, maybe His soccer field is big enough for Todd Bentley and the likes. Grace & Peace, daphne
ouch……quit reading my mind…….my brain hurts….my heart is embarrassed….
This was an excellent post.
Love this. Needed it today. Thank you. Will be posting the same two quotes that rhys lake highlighted – on the fridge and on the window next to the verses that I pray over our adoption process. Thank you.
Bravo.
Have you ever not asked something of God because you’re afraid to believe He’s big enough to accomplish it? “I know You’re big enough to do this God, but what if you’re not? So nevermind…”
I hate that, but I’m working on it.
Great post.
Awesome post Jon! Wow! You are absolutely right, we minimalize God’s greatness all the time. Thanks for putting it back in perspective for me today I really needed it.
Wow. This is so good I need to print it and tape it in my Bible after Revelations.
You keep surprising me both with the depth of your humor and insight!
*sung like Veggie Tales*
“God is bigger than a pooostage stamp!”
Good point, Jon. I think we all do that, even if we don’t want to admit it. I mean look at Abraham – he knew God would give him a child, but he decided to “help God out” a little. He really messed that one up, too! All because we can’t just believe that God is bigger than our minds could EVER understand.
Definitely made me think.
Do you know how much you have to shut out, ignore, dismiss and do away with to realize just how big God is? That he really is bigger than EVERY thing that you are worried about right now? It’s a process. A daily process. But I’m working on it.
thanks for this. I feel like I always “shrink God”, and then I get frustrated at myself because I minister to teens and a big reason why teens are bored with Christianity is because we shrink it down for them, we shrink God, and the Gospel all down and I constantly need to examine how I’m doing at this. thanks for making us laugh AND speaking truth. that is really hard.
Keep being so insightful.
Today I went by an old Boys and Girls club I used to volunteer at to see how they were doing. (I’d heard about massive renovations.)
A kid looked up at me as I exited one of the rooms and said, “You’re taller than God.” I stopped, not knowing quite what to say, and stated, oh no, God is much, much bigger stretching my hands toward the ceiling. I then exited.
I’m 6’6″, but I suspect that doesn’t mean much went put up against God.
Another relevant verse here would be
“…to him who is able to do more than we could ever ask or imagine by HIS POWER … ” Ephesians 3:20
Did he REALLY mean that?
I have a pretty big imagination.
Great post Jon, this is such a common problem, you have offered a clear and useful analogy.
Keep up the good work!!
I love the site!!
C!
Awesome post. This is one of the best illustrations I’ve ever seen on this subject. You should write a book.
That personified what my heart has been trying to tell me for probably more than a year now. Thank you.
Great post Jon. Sure I’m late to post on this, but I’m just reading some of your old stuff.
I’ve struggled with this a lot, doubt and fear, making God small. I started thinking about Doubting Thomas to see what I could learn from him.
One thing I realized is that all the disciples were hiding. If Thomas was the only doubter, why wasn’t he the only one hiding? I could be way wrong here, it’s common with me, but maybe Thomas was the only one honest enough to express what some or most of the others were thinking.
In that way I’ve started to think of Doubting Thomas as Honest Thomas. And I try to be more honest to myself and God about my doubts and fears.
Honest Thomas seems a little pedestrian though for a biblical giant. Maybe he should be Thomas the Honest. That sounds more knightly, like he could slay a dragon with his gleaming sword of honest.
Probably too late for you to read this, but I think all of the disciples were hiding because they feared the religious leaders who had just killed Jesus. I mean, they were known for being his followers, and they didn’t know if they were next on the hit list.
passed – something you did VERB
past – yesterday…or adverb “We went past it.”
Never, ever ever “We went Passed it.” Bad form. And driving me crazy.
Hi, I’m not sure if you’ll read this, but I came upon your blog from a post that Todd Agnew wrote a while back, and I started from the beginning of the list and have just finished this post. Thank you for writing this post. I think it’s just what I’ve needed to hear lately.
"It happens for a lot of reasons, but one is because doubt is easier than faith. Doubt springs forth with natural momentum, faith takes effort. Even when good things happen to me, I immediately start waiting for the other shoe to drop. I treat good things like teenagers treat quiet scenes in horror movies. I walk into the good and say, "Hello, is anyone there? It's good in here, too good." And then I wait for something horrible to come back into the picture. Because I doubt God can sustain the good in my life. He is not big enough. I do it constantly with this site. When friends ask me about it or the book I always say, "It's going well but we'll see." The phrase "we'll see" is my way of saying, "good things don't last. God is not big enough to do the things I would like to do. He is small.""
This was really good for me to read today. This is the epitome of me.
"Welp, everything is awesome now but…we'll see in a few months"
Thank you for this reminder of Gods love…and that he's on our team and isn't waiting to throw a lightning rod at me.
Amen, this is some good preaching! I could not agree more.