As humans, we like boxes. We like putting objects in boxes, containing them in boxes, organizing them in boxes, carrying them in boxes. We like putting ideas in boxes too- categorizing, labeling, organizing our thoughts. Our God is a god of order, and we, made in His image, enjoy ordering our world- physically and mentally.
I have found, however, that people oftentimes put God in a box. We put limitations on the limitless. Most people, whether they realize it or not, are uncomfortable with the idea of an infinite God. We love a great and powerful and very very big God, but we are uneasy with his infinity. We put him in a box, a big one, so that we can still make out the edges. We love feeling the edges of things and to think that God has no edges, that he has no limits, that he has no end- well we cannot quite wrap our minds around it. As much as I love theology and having theological discussions, I have found that many of them seem to draw a box around a God who can never be contained in the human mind.
When I was in college, my heart began burning for unity in the Church. We have greatly divided the Body of Christ, and I believe our disunity is the greatest attack of Satan against Christianity. When Jesus prayed at Gethsemane, he prayed for future believers- that we may be one as He and the Father are one. Imagine that- imagine all believers having the same unity as exists in the Trinity!
Unfortunately, many people think that unity means we all look the same. I have taken part in many different denominations and traditions within the Body, and I am blessed to have worshiped the same God in so many different ways and have met so many different people who I know are truly my brothers and sisters in Christ. I cannot say to the ones who kneel in silent prayer that they are more or less necessary than the ones who dance with joy just as I cannot say to my eye that it is more or less needed than my mouth. As I was seeing the Holy Spirit working in the many different parts of Christ's Body, God has slowly been blowing up my boxes. He loves to blow up the box, to astound us, to fill us with wonder. He not only seeks to exceed our expectations but seeks to exceed them one-hundred fold.
One of our greatest obstacles to unity is our box. We build our box for God and hold so tightly to it. When fellow believers do not fit our box, we cannot fully welcome them as brothers and sisters. We are afraid to blow up the box in fear that everything we know might come crashing down. I have met many people who cannot conceive that God's blessing is on a church so different from their own. I have heard some evangelical Christians say that prophetic gifts and praying in tongues were only for the years following Pentecost in the first century. I have heard Protestants from a variety of churches say that the bread and wine cannot possibly be the actual body and blood of Christ but must merely be a symbol. I have had a Catholic friend be astounded that the summer I felt God's presence most strongly was the summer I could not attend one Catholic mass. I have had friends insist that Christians who have passed from this life cannot possibly be interceding for us.
Whenever you put a limit on God, be sure to ask yourself if that is a truth revealed to you by the Spirit or if it is a rule constructed by your own human reasoning.
Before you reach for the edge of your box and reinforce its walls, ask God to show you His truth. Know that God is more and can do more than you can even imagine, so do not try to limit Him. Pray that your heart will be open to know him more deeply and pray that God will blow up your boxes. Stop trying to feel safe and instead expect God to astound you. God works in more ways and in more places than we can even fathom. Be open to his infinity, and He will amaze you. And above all, pray for unity in the Body of Christ and that God will create unity between your heart and the hearts of true believers very different from you.
Heavenly Father, blow up the boxes we build for you and continue to reveal Yourself to us even though our minds can never contain You.
Erica,
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful post! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Unity in the Church is a big passion of mine as well. In college, I had regular fellowship with the Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants of all breed, and organized an annual United Worship Night when we all got together to worship and pray. Of course, as I think you already know, finite humans need a box of some kind in order to have any meaningful understanding of God, just as words need the rules of syntax to be coherently written and read. But I couldn't agree more that we need to recognize that the limits of our boxes may not necessarily be God's, and that even if we disagree on the dimensions of the "Christian box," many of us are nonetheless sitting in the same box. I think you might appreciate the book "Streams of Living Water" by Richard Foster, which writes about the various denominations as various streams of the same Living Water.