God in a box?

A small boy was at home with his Mum after coming home from Sunday school. Sat at the table he looked around the kitchen.

“Mum, today we learned that God is everywhere. Is that right?” “Yes, my love” said his Mum “God is everywhere.”

“So he is in the car?” “Yes Son”
“And in the house?” – “yes”
“And in the kitchen” – “yes love” said his mum wondering where he was going with this one. “God is everywhere”
“Hmm..” said the small boy as he got up. He moved towards the fridge and opened the door “is God in the fridge?”. Not quite sure what to say his mum said “Yes” so the boy quickly shut the door and said “got him.”

I was thinking about this over the weekend but over the last few days my thinking has taken a different turn. In exploring my own relationship with God and the revelation of God to us and our ability to understand God I wondered if God has put him/herself in a box? God has given us knowledge, both through Creation and through the Scriptures, but this is not complete knowledge - it is only and exactly what we need to know about God. We are told no more than we need and no less than considered beneficial.

Whenever we study God, we need to acknowledge that God defines the limits of our study. If we wish to know God truly, we must be willing to allow God to reveal to us what God wants us to know, with the freedom as to how it is revealed. Whilst we have a treasure trove we do not know everything – such is the mystery.

I guess God is not in a box – as surely our relationship changes with our context and the fluidity of God’s love seeps through anything which attempts to confine it.

We have the scripture to allow us to attempt to understand, but how far can our finite minds understand an infinite God. God is revealed through scripture in a way we attempt to understand. How can our language define the indefinable – how can our finite language do justice to what is infinite. There are no adequate words but what a delight that through a spirit of humility we can approach God’s word though always remembering there is so much more - “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

In Psalm 131 David affirms that there are some things that He can never understand. “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” David’s response is important. “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
May we be quiet, be still and know our God. For the infinite God revealed himself in Jesus and we can have confidence that “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5)

Is God in a box? That depends? Where have you placed God?