JP: We're Going To Need A Bigger Box

JP Writes:

Everyone at some time in their childhood laid on their backs out in the yard or the street (hey, it was Woodstock, GA in the 70's with a population of 700+ which meant no cars) and stared up at the sky at night trying to count the stars. Inevitably, we would tire and give up realizing the impossibility of the task before us. But that didn't deter us from wondering about the vastness of the universe on other nights. That's because most of us weren't destined to become scientists. For the most part we were willing to accept that some things were much bigger than we could explain.

But for some folks that doesn't work. They have to have a finite answer for all things. Not knowing how many, what caused something, or when it began doesn't compute. They have to be able to quantify something or in other words, be able to put their arms around it. For them, this includes God. They put Him in this neat tidy box so He doesn't mess things up. I've got bad news for you if you belong to that group - God doesn't work that way. As matter of fact, He enjoys messing up the boxes that we've created to keep Him in, just to see how we'll react.

For instance, I just read an article where scientists recently announced that there may be a billion (that's with a "b") more stars out there than they originally thought. Nooooo! You mean that the universe is larger than what man can determine? Unbelievable. Ah, but they have figured out why. The light from these stars may not reach Earth because it is blocked by interstellar clouds of dust and gas. I think I can smell the gas that these folks are trying to spread.

We don't like it when God gets outside of the box that we've created for him. It messes up our paradigm of who He is. "My God wouldn't do that or allow someone to act that way." Or my favorite, "God doesn't do those things anymore." Well, why not!?!? Did I miss it when God said, " Nope, I'm not going to do out of the box type things anymore. I'm taking the next 2 or 3 thousand years off."

Well, what He actually said in Malachi 3:6 was, "I the Lord do not change", and James 1:17 likewise tells us that the Father does not change like shifting shadows. Furthermore, Hebrews 13:8 states that "Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever". That sounds to me like if He used to heal sick and raise the dead through fishermen, tax collectors, and tent makers or pour out His Spirit on believers, then He still desires to do so today. After all didn't Jesus say, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these." What's the problem then? I think our intellect has outpaced our faith. We need to accept the fact that He is God and we're not, and He can do whatever He wants, however He chooses. We need to be willing to step out more in faith and see what might happen.

Simply put, we need to get a bigger box!