God is a "Jack in the Box," not a sealed box

not God

GOD

 


               
              






So, I'm not wasting any time getting into the heavy stuff on here. Can you tell by the graphics above, what I think about God?

God is like a "Jack in the Box," full of surprises and ready to jump at us with new ideas, new direction, new revelation, and new perspective. He bursts out of the box, not when we want Him too necessarily, but when He wants to, and lot's of times, in the way and timing we least expect. It's just like the anticipation you feel when you are winding the jack in the box up,  just waiting to be thrilled by the character who will pop out, not knowing when, then all the sudden (usually when you aren't expecting it), that silly thing pops up and scares you half to death. God is the same way. We sit waiting, working, wondering, and then all the of sudden, BAM! He shows up big, in ways that we could have never had any foresight about.

I don't believe that God is a sealed box full of predictability, easily defined, and easy to follow. I think I used to try to define God, because it made me more comfortable. I could unwrap that box I had delicately put Him in, and take Him out whenever I wanted. I could pick the size of the box, the heaviness of the box, or even the amount of boxes I put Him, and for awhile that worked. But, somewhere down the road, between going to a discipleship program that had an answer, phrase, or "go to" saying for everything even if it didn't always seem to "fit", getting married/having babies, and living life with significant responsibility day to day, I changed my view and let go of a few of my ideas I held onto, because there are just some things that don't have a simple, pretty in pink, answer.

See when you get older, your world broadens, and your perspective on life's really tough issues change because you've now actually experienced a few things. You don't really have a choice but to redefine how you see God. Well, I take that back, you do have a choice. You can either start anew with your relationship with God and break your box down, or you can define God in the ways you always have. Of course, if you choose to not change your thinking and continue to try stuffing him in your box, even if he is bulging out of the seams, you will be working a million times harder for your box to hold, than if you just let the walls bust. By the way, I'm visualizing myself, sitting on a suitcase, sweating and cussing, trying so hard to make it zip with all the contents in it, all the while I just don't want to admit that I've over packed and am going to have to rearrange. And if I don't, I'll have to pay the extra fee and lug around this ridiculously heavy suitcase. That's how I view putting God in a box of your ideals that you can't shake. You'll end up working on something that just isn't going to fit and then paying for it. Whether emotionally, spiritually, physically, or mentality, you'll pay for it. It just works better to let God be who is He is, even with all the mystery that scares us. If every time you have a crisis, or tough decision to make, that He wants to explode out the box from to show you something, but you keep stuffing Him into your ideal box, your life becomes a joke. You wouldn't wear jeans that didn't fit!  When you experience something that doesn't fit with the way you have always viewed God, but you still try to make it work, it doesn't make sense. It's rigid, cold, and has no depth. If the box you've put God in doesn't line up with what's going in your life, it's probably because your box isn't working. If you continue to use something that doesn't work, it's pointless. Let the box burst!


Now, I'm not claiming that letting the box burst is easy, or even fun at first. I'm not even saying I have that whole thing down. I just know that in the ways I have let God surprise me, I haven't been disappointed, even when it's really hard to do. Though His box is filled with the unknown and things that I don't always understand, it's also filled with more grace, beauty, wonder, freedom, and truth, than I could come up with to put in a box I've created. God is terrifying. He catches us when we didn't even know we were being chased, He provides for us when we didn't even know we needed something, and He gives abundantly when we didn't deserve it. And that scares a control freak like me. But, I'd rather serve a mysterious jack in the box who loves me passionately and with detail, than a glass case that is fragile and could break any time life's craziness zooms through it...or a sealed, boxed in, God.