My Small God in a Box

I'm realizing that my tendency is to make God manageable; to give him boundaries that I can fully understand and embrace. I want to put God in a box. This way I can own him, rather than him owning me. This has become apparent lately as I've been reading through Joshua and wrestling again with my inclination against God's justice. How does his love and justice correspond? Psalm 101 says "I will sing of your love and justice." I just want to sing about his love and disregard his justice. I'm not sure I fully understand his justice and sometimes the scriptures don't attempt to explain it. This is especially apparent in the Old Testament. Often they just tell the stories and leave us to wonder "why?"

There is an obscure narrative in Judges 13 where the parents Sampson, the future Judge of Israel, are visited by an angel. First, they describe him like this ..."He looked like an angel of God, very awesome." Somehow I think we have diluted the term "awesome" to describe a good hamburger or a new song that we like. These folks described a visit from an angel of God as "awesome" and they probably used that term accurately because it caused them to fall on their faces in worship. Moreover, they asked the angel his name, and he replied "Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding." Can you imagine? The angel refused to even give them his name because they were too obtuse to understand it. Is it possible that if I'm too dense to understand the name of an angel of God, maybe I'm too finite to understand the eternal purpose behind each of God's actions?

There is a book by J.B. Phillips written in 1960's called "Your God is Too Small." It's a good word for me right now. Here's a quote from his summary: "We can never have too big a conception of God, and the more scientific knowledge advances, the greater becomes our idea of his vast and complicated wisdom. Yet, unless we are to remain befogged and bewildered and give up all hope of ever knowing God as a person, we have to accept his own planned focusing of himself in a human being, Jesus Christ. If we accept this as a fact, as the Fact of history, it becomes possible to find a satisfactory and comprehensive answer to a great many problems, and, what is equally important, a reasonable "shelf" on which the unsolved perplexities may be left with every confidence."

So I'm leaving God's infinite purpose in his justice through history on that "reasonable shelf" today and determining that I'll not be so presumptuous to conclude that he can be managed. Thanks God for not being limited to my box.