Unboxing God

God will not be boxed.

I look at God. I mean, those times when I really see Him. (By really see Him, of course, I mean sort-of-catch-a-tiny-glimpse-of-an-itsy-bitsy-part-of-Him-that-is-not-shrouded-by-the-limitations-of-my-fallen-mind.)

And then I look at the cramped storage space I’ve set aside for Him, and my skin tingles a little.

In an anxious sort of way.

Because that box I’ve built for Him to sit down in, I know it’s not spacious. Not in the same way that He is spacious anyway.

That anxious feeling creeps in when with wide eyes I realize I’ve packed black powder into a crate and set it next to an open flame.

It’s only a matter of time before He blows the sides off.

He will not be boxed.

::

One day last week I hunkered down in an oversized chair. My computer warmed my lap and a row of tabs lined the top of my browser, each open to another reference work. Books littered the floor at my feet, and I held my leatherbound close at hand.

And then I sat. And stared.

I Alt-Tabbed between the big brains of scholars. I read the text again. I picked up a book from the floor, flipped through a few pages and dropped it back to my feet with the others.

After I leaned back in the chair (and rolled my eyes), God and I talked some. I pounded out questions.

Some were insightful. Others were whiny.

You know how I don’t take well to not understanding the text.

He suggested I just read it again. (Really, God. Really? Again?)

And He thought I might do well with some waiting.

Waiting. Seems it’s always about the waiting.

::

Sometimes the waiting is loud.

Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

It isn’t always a still-sitting thing, waiting.

I pause to wait, but life around me does not. The world keeps moving.

Even as I pause, I keep moving too.

Strong, growing bodies still burst through the door at dark with empty bellies rumbling and full mouths spilling out with the telling of the day. Life’s next chapter in full swing, phones still ring and voices banter. A wide-open schedule opens new doors and the chattering children of strangers jump through them into my back seat for ride across town to hear the voice of One who loves them.

So the waiting, it can be noisy.

::

But in the hush of the waiting, I hear a tick-tick-tick from that corner where I pushed the crate out of the way.

A tiny orange spark follows the fuse along the side of the box and the tingling begins anew.

She’s gonna blow.

I’ve done it again.

I’ve defined God on my own terms.

And He will not be boxed.

::

I marvel sometimes at the ease with which I determine God’s course for Him. (And then I wonder why He does not so readily express His appreciation for my capable assistance.) It seems I find my self knowing what He should do, and how, and when.

I listened in Sunday School as one remarked on our small understanding of God’s character, of His greatness, of His being. Chase Him and be chased by Him as we might, but we still latch on only to tiny fragments.

Another, perhaps feeling much larger than the rest in the shadow of One so Almighty, slapped a hand across cowhide covering his Authority and insisted there was nothing left to know. It’s all right here, in these Words. There is nothing I can’t know.

Yes, and no. I offered that we, frail and broken, see as through a glass darkly. We don’t see all there is to see. The flat of the sword, it swung wild again, not splitting bone and marrow by sharpness of the blade, but shattering bone and crushing spirit with the broadside. Unyielding words pounded: Maybe that’s how you see; I don’t. I see clearly. I see it all.

::

Such audacity, it offends me. How can one speak as though having seen God, to His face? How can one claim to understand the depths to which we cannot yet plunge?

We know in part, but only in part.

And yet, somehow, it does not offend me to offer my wisdom to God, to instruct Him in the way that He should speak, think, act. My own audacity — arrogance — does not level me as it should.

But give Him time; He brings me low.

His ways bring me to contrition.

His hands reform my heart ’til it knows what it is to be poor in spirit.

And He rejoices, for He knows this thing. The poor in spirit wrap bruised and broken hands around a Kingdom.

They attain what is withheld from those whose heads and mouths grow wider than hearts and hands grow deep.

Those, sometimes, like me.

::

Two mornings ago, just when I thought I had the puzzle of Him worked out again, He took me to that place where I could hear the tick-tick-tick. I caught a glimpse of an ever-shortening fuse, approaching that crate of Hercules powder.

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

Over the ticking He whispered in my ear, as He did Isaiah and as He did Job, When did I ask You to advise Me?

When?

::