Have you ever noticed things come in all sorts of shapes and sizes? People come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, cars do, houses do, and gifts do. When Laura sat in the middle of her birthday presents to open them, she had small bags, large bags, small boxes, big boxes and envelopes. Each one contained something special and exciting, but they weren’t all the same. Some gifts are too big to wrap. There isn’t really a box or bag for a bicycle or a car. Some things just don’t fit in a box.
Many Christians try to put God in a box. As long as He does things a certain way, they are comfortable with Him; however, when He does something outside of “the box” they don’t know how to handle it. I used to be one of those people. I had seen God move in my life and the lives of those I so I thought I knew what to expect from Him. I am sure I had Him rolling with laughter in heaven thinking I had figured Him out with my mind’s ability to conceptualize Him. He is so far beyond anything I can imagine [Ephesians 3:20]. We will never be able to put God in a box because His ways and thoughts are so beyond ours [Isaiah 55:8-9]. He is functioning with the full picture and we only have a glimpse of it.
1 Timothy 3:16 says, “Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.” How can out minds comprehend all of that? We cannot fathom what angels look like or how He appeared when He was taken up in glory, yet we have to trust it because God said it.
In reading the Word of God, we can begin to understand some of who He is and what He is doing [Ephesians 3:4], but we also have to trust because God is good and He is always up to good on our behalf. We can have faith in Him even when we don’t understand something completely. Like the father who came to Jesus for help for his son, we must trust Him. The father knew Jesus could help his son. He didn’t know what it would look like, sound like or end like, but He knew Jesus was to be trusted. In the end he said, “I believe; help me overcome my unbelief” [Mark 9:24-NIV].
You may be in a place right now where you feel the Lord isn’t doing what He needs to be doing for you. Talk with Him about it. Dive into His Word to look for answers, and then rest in Him and know He can be trusted. Don’t try and cram Him in a box. He’s too big, He won’t fit, and He is too amazing to try and restrict Him to the things we understand.