My God is So Big

“When we fail to see God in his entirety, we fail to love him.” — Creation Unraveled, Matt Carter and Halim Suh

I remember singing, “My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty; there’s nothing my God cannot do,” as both a kid and, eventually, an AWANA Cubbies leader. As a kid, God was big. I believed he could do anything. More than that, I believed he could do anything, and he was with me. He loved me.

I grew up, and, I guess, the world crowded in. My failures and failings. Sin. All the things that usually shake up faith, did. God was still big, but he seemed distant, unreachable. I no longer held a childlike assurance that God could and would do anything. Doubt crowded in about his love.

I forgot—

I forgot who God was, became a God-amnesiac. God’s majesty and nearness became dim memories. He created the world with his voice, then molded man from dust and breathed life into him. I knew the story, of course, but its deeper meanings and significance were lost.

Fortunately, God didn’t forget me. He pursued, starting with a growing dissatisfaction in graduate school. I grew weary of the church I attended with its focus on social-good messages. I missed hearing from a pastor who opened the Bible, read a passage, and dissected it.

My heart and spirit longed for it, so I explored other churches. I found one that seemed just right for someone like me, a person who’s a believer and an artist. (Should I say God brought it to my attention? It feels that way.) I discovered a pastor and wife who loved the arts and explained concepts visually. They poured into me, and I grew.

That period of life seemed like a rebirth. I reawakened to God’s glory and beauty. I started to fall in love with him again, to be that four-year-old who believed, who believed, who believed.

God wasn’t finished with the work, though. He kept at it during my stint in El Paso and continued it when I moved to Austin. He’s still completing it as I go through Creation Unraveled with my accountability partner.

That book contains some words that resonate, some of them being the phrase that introduced this post. “When we fail to see God in his entirety, we fail to love him.” I have failed to love God in that regard. I don’t always see him as the both/and God, which is weird because I love the idea of both/and. I gravitate toward it in the poetry I read and write. The ability to be two things simultaneously captures my attention.

Perhaps that’s the thing. God isn’t two things simultaneously; he’s all of his qualities at the same time. My mind can’t grasp that, but I know one thing: I want to get a bigger picture of God. I desire to see him in his entirety so that I love him for who he is and not for who I think he is. I want to sing, “My God is so big,” and mean it with all my heart and soul, just as I did when I was four years old.

Image: SIM USA (Creative Commons)