God in a Box

Isaiah 44:13-19 (The Message) The woodworker draws up plans for his no-god, traces it on a block of wood. He shapes it with chisels and planes into human shape—a beautiful woman, a handsome man, ready to be placed in a chapel. He first cuts down a cedar, or maybe picks out a pine or oak, and lets it grow strong in the forest, nourished by the rain. Then it can serve a double purpose: Part he uses as firewood for keeping warm and baking bread; from the other part he makes a god that he worships—carves it into a god shape and prays before it. With half he makes a fire to warm himself and barbecue his supper. He eats his fill and sits back satisfied with his stomach full and his feet warmed by the fire: "Ah, this is the life." And he still has half left for a god, made to his personal design—a handy, convenient no-god to worship whenever so inclined. Whenever the need strikes him he prays to it, "Save me. You're my god."

Pretty stupid, wouldn't you say? Don't they have eyes in their heads? Are their brains working at all? Doesn't it occur to them to say, "Half of this tree I used for firewood: I baked bread, roasted meat, and enjoyed a good meal. And now I've used the rest to make an abominable no-god. Here I am praying to a stick of wood!"

"God? Are you infinite?"

"No."

"No!? Then you are finite -- you have limitations."

"No, I am not finite either."

"Well, you must be one or the other! Those two categories are mutually exclusive!"

"So said Aristotle." There was a long pause, and then he continued, "I am who I will be. I am neither finite nor infinite and yet both."

He let me wrestle with that for a minute. He let me soak in the swirling whirlpool of logic and syllogisms. Then he explained, "If I were infinite, then you could ask me whether I could create a stone so large that I could not lift it. There is no answer to that question -- not because the question is illogical, but because the initial premise is meaningless."

This is hitting me hard. The core of my being survives because I have an innate ability to categorize things as dangerous or safe, to assign attributes to things, to classify them, to put them into neat little packages of understanding. I work with classes and attributes for a living. God is asking me to take Him out of the file drawer and get to know Him directly. He is asking me to take Him out of my head and let Him abide in my heart.

Am I starting to see a new light?

(Chip, chip.)

If I desire to get to know a river, do I scoop a piece of it into a bucket and take it home with me? Do I study its wetness, its ability to make plants grow, to put out fires? Do I measure its temperature and compute its density? Do I sit and watch it evaporate?

(Chisel, chisel.)

Of course not. A river in a bucket is no longer a river.

(Scrape, scrape.)

God in a box is no longer God.

(Sand, sand. Polish, polish.)

If I try to shape God in my image ... as soon as I try to define Him ...

(Buff, buff. There!)

I create an idol.

In order to get to know a river, I need to live with it, sleep next to it, learn its names, listen to it, taste it, follow where it goes, discover its seasons, read its currents. I need to touch it, drink it in with all my senses, and make it a part of who I am. The same is true with getting to know God. I need to let Him be who He is and who He will be -- who He will be in me and who He will be in the lives of those He touches through me.

Every time I think I have him under control, that I know how he can do MY will, that I know who he is and what he looks like, He reminds me that the image in my head is not Him anymore. It's nothing but Isaiah's stick of wood.

And yet ...

My Lord encourages me to keep taking my best shot to describe the delicate interlacing of His beauty, the thunder of His power, the breadth of His wisdom, the depth of His love -- and to fail giddily with each attempt. That is the joy of praising Him. As David discovered so long ago composing songs of wonder and praise for a God who is beyond all understanding --- a Psalm to God is a joyously futile exercise at using our limited language to describe what cannot be described.

God invites me to get to know Him ... learn all His names ... to live with Him, sleep with Him, listen to Him, read His Word, and follow Him wherever He leads me.

God is. God will be. He keeps inviting me to write, and to smile and cry each time I fail to capture even a glimmer of who He is and who He is becoming in my life.