“What does God’s sovereignty mean to you?” Don’t you just love these huge, loaded questions?

That one was asked in a meeting of trusted group of friends and fellow workers in Christ. We all conceded that God was sovereign. The question was, how do you, in your mind, reconcile that sovereignty with the free will of man and the presence of evil in the world?

As we each shared our understanding, I noticed a trend in the way we phrased our answers. We said things like, “I’m just more comfortable thinking that God doesn’t do this or that” or “I just need the God I worship to be this or that.”

We all believed in God’s sovereignty, but we somehow seemed to expect that we could rein that sovereignty in for the purposes of our own comfort.

But is God Comfortable?

In The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, the characters are learning about King Aslan, the lion who rules over Narnia. The children nervously ask if he is “quite safe.” Their guide, Mr. Beaver, replies, “Safe? . . . Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King I tell you.”

I heard this line quoted long before I read the book. I’ll admit that it made me very uncomfortable. C.S.Lewis always insisted that Aslan was not intended to be an allegory for Jesus, but the lion’s personality and powers are clearly characteristic of Jesus. I was uncomfortable, because it seemed to me that Lewis was saying that Jesus, and, by association, God wasn’t safe. I didn’t like that at all.

God is our refuge and he’s present with us through times of trouble Psalm 46:1). His very name is a strong tower that we run to for safety (Proverbs 18:10). He is a stronghold in times of distress (Nahum 1:7) .

Then I read the book and saw this quote in context. I realized that Lewis was saying the lion couldn’t be tamed. He wouldn’t conform to anyone’s expectations. That’s what made him “not safe.”

Aslan couldn’t be put in a box. And neither can God.

God is Unfathomable

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your way, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

ISAIAH 55:8-9 (ESV)

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutible his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor.

ROMANS 11:33-34 (ESV)

God is the King of Kings. He is the mighty one. He created the universe, containing 200 billion trillion stars, and the human body, containing anywhere from 20 to 100 trillion cells.

And yet, we have the audacity to think that we can explain him in ways that make us comfortable. We try to wrap our brains around this God.

I am in awe of elasticity and connectivity of the brain, how it manages our emotions and protects itself when we encounter great stress or trauma, and how it processes language and sensory information, what it can learn, and how it chooses what to forget.

My brain is all that and a bag of chips. And yet it still is not big and stretchy enough to wrap around God. My brain cannot hold God, manage him, or comprehend him.

That doesn’t stop me from trying. I will always seek to know God more, because there is so much more to know. But I have to fight the desire to limit him to my understanding.

God is Knowable

The desire to know God is a gift from God. He created us to know him and makes a way for us to pursue that knowledge.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing knowledge of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

PHILIPPIANS 3:8, ESV

Thou has made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.

AUGUSTINE’S CONFESSIONS 1:1)

If we seek him, we’ll find him (Jeremiah 29:13). If we draw near to him, he’ll draw near to us (James 4:8). He has given us direct access to his throne room so we can have a personal knowledge of him (Hebrews 4:16). The desire to know him is a godly desire (Psalms 42:1-2, 63:1; 84:2 ) for God himself put eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and replaced our heart of stone with a heart of flesh and put his very Spirit in us (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

We can know God. He wants us to know him. Each of us. Personally.

And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

HEBREWS 8:11, ESV

Enlarge my heart

Knowing God increases our desire for him and the capacity of our heart. The quest to know him is an adventure that never ends. His unknowable, incomprehensible, and unfathomable nature creates a hunger and thirst to know him more. Instead of us shrinking God down to a manageable size to fit our brains, we ask him to enlarge our heart to receive him.

I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.

Psalm 119:32, ESV

Toss the box (or at least hold it lightly)

Would you agree with me that most schematics and systems and -isms and -ologies are means of managing knowledge? They are basically boxes. And like boxes, systems are not bad to have around. Unless we try to use them to manage God.

Knowing God is believing he is who he says he is. It’s not about finding a way to contain all knowledge of him. Being safe with God is more about trusting his ways than it is about being able to explain his ways.

If we’re satisfied with a God we fully understand, it’s possible that we’ve settled for less of him than he offers us.

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

EPHESIANS 3:17-21 (ESV)

Paul’s prayer was that we would comprehend the sheer immensity of the love, power, and knowledge of God–not define it so we can confine it in the box we call a brain.

We grasp this knowledge so we can hold on to it for the ride of our life, not so we can stuff it into a neat little box. A God that we can wrap our mind around is the exact opposite of a God who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than all that we can ask, explain, think up, or imagine.

Boxes isolate us

People who collect too much stuff in boxes can become hoarders. And hoarders eventually become isolated. Sometimes the contents of the boxes are forgotten or have ceased to matter. The boxes are what is important. Life is consumed by protecting and arranging boxes, and the hoarder’s life is confined to a smaller and smaller space.

I’m afraid that in the body of Christ, our boxes are dividing us. And they’re filled with ideas and doctrines that don’t matter to God nearly as much as they matter to us. God tells us to be set apart from the world as holy. This matters. Sin matters. But our being one with one another seems to matter a lot with God, too. Are we sure that everything that divides us is a issue of sin and holiness?

I’m afraid that we are holding so firmly to our opinions about words, numbers, and order that we’ve forgotten who God is and who we are in his Son. I fear that our boxes are confining us to a space that is too small to share with others who love Jesus and seek to follow him as passionately as we do. I worry that our boxes are stacked so high that we’ve lost sight of declaring God’s greatness and pouring forth the fame of his goodness.

Come Alongside

This blog took on a life of its own as I typed it. But I’m going to leave it here. If you’ve made it this far, please read a few more words and hear my heart.

I yearn for the body of Christ to come alongside one another, encourage one another, and build each other up. I yearn for us to praise and worship God in community. I long for us to labor together to share the good news about Jesus. If that is your longing too, will you do something with me?

Seek community with a friend in Christ with whom you disagree about something. Gather together simply to onfess your shared faith. Praise and worship God together for who is and what he’s done–and don’t even talk about how, when, and in what order he did it.

This verse from Psalm 145 might be a good place to start. Read it together–in unison or by alternating phrases. It doesn’t matter how you do it. Just get together to agree together about the goodness and greatness of God.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, for his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall commend your works to another,
And shall commend your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
And on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds,
And I will declare your greatness.
They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness,
And shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

PSALM 145:3 ESV

If you try it, will you let me know how it went? I’m convinced that confessing our faith, our praise, and our thanksgiving together can change our hearts toward one another. I’d love for you to prove me right, but accept that you may prove me wrong. That’s okay. Just do it. Please. And thank you.

Traveling in Grace,

Christi