One BIG God

I'm reading through the Old Testament right now. In the Bible. It's the first part of the book that covers everything from God's Creation of the universe through the prophets that talk about sin and God's mercy concerning the Israelites. It all points to Jesus. It's true. Trust me. And if this doesn't convince, check it out for yourself. It's good stuff.


Anyway, I'm in the part toward the end that has all the little short sections written by people with names that are difficult to pronounce. They're called Minor Prophets. 


Before I go on to the point of blog, I'd just like to acknowledge that if God called you to say something important enough to go in the Bible - the most read book of all times that is the Word of the Creator and Master of the Universe - it'd be a bummer and a little odd to be called "minor." I'm just sayin...


OK, back to my point. 


In these books, you can see a lot of how God takes sin and grace seriously. He loves righteousness, justice, love and kindness. He is concerned when his people - anyone - does not receive proper care. He wants people's needs to be met by other people who have the resources. He calls the Israelites to worship Him (I mean, after all, He did create the Universe, rescue the nation of Israel more than a few times and is completely Holy - kind of a big deal), and when they don't, He is jealous. He is jealous because His love is so great, He desires them to live into the way that they were made, which includes worshipping the Lord God Almighty. 


So we see a God that takes sin seriously. Got it. 


We also see a God who takes love and grace and mercy seriously. He pours it out when it is completely undeserved, as He does in our lives today. He never forgets a promise. He does all things so that we may know that He is God. That's talked about a lot. We're a forgetful people, and sometimes, we need to be reminded. (I wrote a whole blog about that remember thing once, too. It's a big deal.) His love is never-ending and over-whelming. He is ridiculously Holy and powerful and mysterious, but He also desires and is involved in our lives, even if we completely fail to acknowledge it. It's pretty awesome.


Nonetheless, the Old Testament sometimes gets a bad rep. We want a god that makes us feel good, who reminds us when to be nice to people, who answers our prayers when we're in trouble and who is uninvolved. After all, if he's involved in our lives, then we have to be accountable to him and submit to his authority, and human beings have struggled with that since the beginning of time. Studies today call that "moralistic therapeutic deism." Google that if you find it interesting. 


We want a god who we get to define, who fits into our little box, who stays out of our personal life...but who also doesn't mind changing a grade on that exam we may have bombed or turning all the lights green when we're late to work in rush hour traffic. That's a god we can control and figure out. That god is weak


Thank goodness He is not like that. What kind of God would that be? Not one worthy of worship. Not one worthy of love. Not one who is powerful enough to love us, forgive us and mold us. Not one who knows us each individually and intimately. Not one who actually is majestic enough to be worthy of time, attention and trust. Why would we ever want to worship a weak god? It would be silly. Why would we ever trust a god who was not involved in our lives? It would be irresponsible. Why would we ever depend on a god who was powerless? It would be pointless.


It's sad to me that so many people judge the Bible without reading it. Think about it. How often do media and you and me (yes, you and me) criticize the Bible? How often to we just say, "that's mean - I don't like it" when it comes to one short verse or story that we hear about, without even reading it for ourselves. I imagine that it's sort of like my friend's 7-month-old who screamed the entire way home last night in the car seat. She did not want to be put in there and kept there for so long, but she never bothered to ask and understand that it was for her own good. Her mother put her there because she loves her daughter with a crazy-love that made listening to a screeching child for 30-minutes a better option. Yes, she cried loudly the whole time. I happened to call this friend in the middle of it and was impressed with the little girl's lung capacity. Like her, we kick and scream and throw a temper-tantrum when we don't understand or like what God is doing. We don't even ask. Even if we could understand and learn more about His great story, in which we are involved, we don't take time to ask a question, let alone listen. 


The point of this blog? I don't want a weak god. I want the big, powerful, mountains-tremble-beause-of-Him God that I read about in the Old Testament. Sure, I don't understand it all and wonder sometimes where He's working and why things don't make sense...but that's part of the reason that He is worthy of worship. He is so big, so mighty, so powerful, so loving, so compassionate, so all-knowing, so wonderful, so involved...so there-are-not-enough-words-all-the-languages-combined-to-describe-is-HUGENESS...that makes Him worthy of worship, praise and love with our whole lives. 


That is the God who I want to know.