Human nature is to be safe and to comfortable. That’s ok. It is a universal need in everyone to feel safe and secure. That’s why we lock our doors, password protect our things, and set our house temperature to exactly 73 degrees. There is nothing wrong with any of these things...
However, we tend to try and do the same thing with God. We want to make God safe and predictable and get him to fit into a box so that we can completely understand everything about him. We try to domesticate God and make him ‘user friendly’. This is why some people will spend their entire lives trying to answer some of the unanswerable questions about God. Personally I think it’s slightly arrogant for us to say or think, “if there is a God, I’d better be able to understand everything about Him; he’d better be able to fit completely into my 8 pound head.” The reality is that maybe we won’t completely understand everything about Him. And that’s ok too. I think that’s why we have to completely trust Him...not me.
There are 2 things I know for sure
- We have become too predictable. We love what is safe because it makes us feel, well...safe. We fear and do not like the unknown. Sometimes it looks like our faith is starting to be the routine; starting to be the norm; that it is normal and cool to follow Jesus. I think you can start to see it in the American church as well. Church has become just another weekly activity that you do, and then unplug when you leave, like a recreational softball league or a class on crocheting. Where is the passion? adventure and challenge? Was it ever there to being with or was it always just another task to perform?...
- Jesus was very mysterious and unpredictable. He would do things that would leave people completely baffled. He didn’t have a set schedule, and wasn’t really expected to be anywhere at any certain time. At times He was surrounded by people and couldn’t get away, and then at others He would completely disappear and no one could find Him (Mark 1:35, Matthew 14:13). Sometimes He would answer questions that people were just thinking, other times He would refuse to answer their questions altogether (Mark 7:5-6, 11:33). Sometimes He would heal everyone, and then at times He would leave people physically unhealed and go somewhere else (Mark 1:38). Sometimes He would spend a day with people and they would call Him the Christ (John 1), and sometimes He would spend months with people and they would desert Him (John 6). Sometimes He would say something that would change someones life in an instant (Luke 23:40-43), and sometimes people would have absolutely no idea what He was talking about (Mark 9:32, Luke 9:44-45, Luke 18:31-34, John 4:33). People would go from everyone praising Him to everyone being furious at Him and trying to kill Him 13 verses later (Luke 4:15-28), or go from being amazed at Him to being offended by Him 3 verses later (Matthew 13:54-57). No one really knew who He was except the demons. (Mark 3:11, 3:20-22, 6:14-15).
Lets get back to the mystery of God. Lets walk in faith of not knowing every single step we will ever take in our lives. Lets just trust that God is God and I am not...
