Your God is Too Small!

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem; and the bow of war will be cut off. And he will speak peace to the nations; and His dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth."
-Zechariah 9:9-10

When Jesus entered into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday, His riding on a colt (a young donkey) was the fulfillment of this prophecy in Zecharia 9:9. The people recognized this and heralded Him as their king. They knew that Zecharia 9 was all about proclaiming the end of war and oppression, and the beginning of peace and a kingdom. What they failed to recognize is that the way God works usually differs from our timetable and our purposes. They saw Him as the political leader who could lead the revolt and free them from the tyrany of Herod and the oppression of a foreign government. But His purposes were so much higher than that. He was there to give them the freedom, salvation, and peace that they really needed. His action of salvation at the culmination of the Passion Week brought about spiritual freedom and paved the way for God's Kingdom to eventually be established eternally on a new earth. 

That is why the very same people who proclaimed Him as "Hosanna" upon His entry into Jerusalem could turn around yell, "crucify Him," just days later. It is because He was not there to do their bidding and give them what they wanted, instead He provided for them what they actually needed. They could not see past their current situation and desires to recognize the greatest event in the history of mankind- the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which brought about the salvation of all who believe!

I cannot help but see how often we are guilty of this same misunderstanding. We want and expect God to work in a way that we deem best, but His character, plan, and purposes far outweigh our thinking. We want God to be our pupet. To work in a way that will bring about our comfort and ease, and to speak the exact words that we feel we want to hear. However, God's primary purpose is for His own glory and our sanctification, and, most often, genuine sanctification is quite an uncomfortable process. 

I have started to see one of the current ways we put God into a box while I have been reading through the devotional "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young. I want to first say that I am excited to see this devotional as a top selling book, not just on Christian booklists, but as an overall best-seller! I think it is great that people are taking the time to seek God by reading this book and she is helping people develop a deeper, more intimate relationship with God. My problem is that she writes each devotional in the first person of God's voice speaking directly to us. She teaches a type of, what I like to call, "Christian mysticism,"1 that encourages people to clear their mind and wait for God to speak.2

I believe this is a very dangerous practice, because our hearts our decietful (Jer. 17:9), our fleshly desires cloud our judgement (Gal. 5:16-24), and it makes it so that God "speaks" what we conveniently want to hear. It, in a way, forces God to speak and work on our level according to what we want. The reality is God already has spoken in His Word!3 He has already given us everything we need that pertains to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3ff).4 

This is just one of the many ways that we want God to say and do what we think is best as opposed to submitting to His ultimately grander plan, which is so much better for us! We need to stop making God so small by expecting Him to work according to our plans and being angered when He has a different way of doing things. As you take time to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, I urge you to bask in the vastness of God's purposes and power. He is the God who dwells in unapproachable light, yet He has stooped to bring salvation to mankind enabling the Creator of the universe to have a personal relationship His lowly creatures. Now that's a big God! 

1 If you would like more information on this topic, please e-mail me at leah.gingery@gmail.com for an excellent and more in-depth essay titled, "Christian Mysticism Within Evangelicalims" by Ken Hornok.

2 While she supplements he devotionals with Scripture, the verses are most often taken out of context. One such example is her favorite verse, "be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). This verse is not about clearing our minds and seeking God. It is best translated as "cease striving and know that I am God." Meaning we need to stop trying to do everything ourselves, we need to stop trying to be god and just let God be God. Another example was her May 27th devotional where she spoke of "putting on God the way we put on clothing" citing the verses Rom. 13:14 and Col. 3:12. But we do not put on God's presence to help is with our day, we are called to put on righteousness, purity, and Christlikeness. 

3 Of course I also do not want to put God in a box by saying that He cannot speak audibly today. No doubt He can do any miraculous thing He desires, He is God! But He has already revealed Himself through His Word and we grow to know Him more by knowledge and experience of His Word.  

4 So much so that He gave us Song of Solomon, a book devoted to instructing us on how to have a good and godly sex life!

5 Image taken from souljournaler@blogspot.com