Even When God Seems Small

DAILY BYTE

We are all, therefore, ‘on our way; through a world where we struggle against the mammoth pulls of materialism and greed, where we wake up daily to new tales of frightful suffering and evil, where we painfully face the reality of our own weaknesses, and where we constantly encounter people who live with very small images of God indeed – angry, wrathful, petty God’s – and so it is vitally important that we daily grapple with the following question:

‘Is my God big enough to deal with all of this?’

Scripture answers an emphatic YES!

We may not always understand God, we may only often perceive realities through a hazy mist, but God is certainly big enough to deal with the worst and ugliest of them.

What is important to remember though, is that God will not always appear to us to be big, certainly not in the way the world likes to define ‘big.’ This is because God has chosen to work through the very vulnerable way of love. Furthermore, God seems to delight in appearing to us in small, little ways – just like that human figure of Jesus was dwarfed by those temples.

It is for us to learn to believe that anything is possible for this God.
Like Peter eventually learnt. For although Peter was initially horrified to hear Christ speak of being vulnerable because it just didn’t fit his perceptions of what ‘big’ should be, he soon learnt through his experiences that God is not only big enough to face suffering and death, but also big enough to conquer it. During Peter’s spiritual journey his perceptions of God was exploded by the Resurrection and Pentecost.

So then, take heart as you go ‘on your way,’ that if you keep on trusting in God, no matter how frightening your circumstances may be, God is big enough to bring you through them.

Perhaps then, we should learn to wake up everyday and say, ‘My God is soooo big!’
That is because it is exactly by making ‘our way’ through everyday life and trusting in God despite the odds that our faith grows and God becomes so much more.
It is in facing off every temptation by just leaning on God that little bit more; it is clinging onto God no matter how hard life tries for us to let go; it is exactly all that which ‘unblinds’ us to God’s true nature and size, and it is exactly that which opens our arms just that little bit wider because we find that our God is soooo big.

PRAY AS YOU GO

O Lord, we pray that like you did for Peter, you would grow our imaginations, minds and perceptions to take in more and more of you. Help us to make our way through every tough situation carrying with us the truth that you are a God who just cannot be contained by human ideas and limitations. Thanks be to you, Our Great and Wonderful God. Amen.

FOCUS READING

Mark 8 : 34-35 (NIV)

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.