God's Bigger than Your Backyard

Weekly Updates

This week has seen things become more and more normalized, and the silence is becoming more of a friend and less deafening. I am finally creating a routine, stretching the day out more, becoming used to the more relaxed (though no less busy) pace of Ottawa. I think part of the initial struggle WAS the speed of those of us who are from Toronto. We really are fast people.

Ottawa has been a good 'HALT!' which I needed without knowing it. 

God's Bigger than Your Backyard

I was thinking about God this week. I was wondering why some have difficulty with understanding Him; why I can't always love Him as He is (the God revealed within the Bible); and why others can get along with some concept of God which seems so implausible to many of us (i.e. any cult). In the course of this line of thinking I stumbled upon an analogy that I found helpful and something that has stuck with me through the week, so I thought I would share. 

To preface: every analogy is by nature incomplete to those who nitpick, like me (i.e. who think). To you I say: An analogy is like a block of Swiss Cheese - it has its architectural faults, but focusing on them means you're missing the point of the cheese (if it's good, eat it). For those who hate that I have used an analogy to explain analogies I'll speak more plainly: analogies are all imperfect, but we should attempt to see the point it makes. It is a bad analogy when it is unnecessarily complex and clunky.

Having committed the ultimate faux pas of using an analogy to explain analogies (with special apologies to my brother Keegan) I will continue. 

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Imagine if God's identity could be contained in eight acres of land. That would be a lot of land to take in and maintain if we had to keep it ourselves, with just our bare hands and basic tools. 

Eight acres of God is a lot, and many of us can't take it in. 

So, for many of us, we take a backyard's worth of God and focus on it. Ideally, we take the parts that we like: 

that he doesn't have a say in our purpose (as any creator has in the thing that he/she makes), 

that He would not send people to Hell (so not a God of Justice judging right and wrong, which is not a distinctly Christian concept), 

that He would not hold us to some moral law (which is, again, not a distinctly Christian concept), 

and definitely that He should be a loving God (which IS a distinctly Christian concept). 

So then We take God the way we like Him, not the way He is. 

We could get by with our little backyard-sized God - we might even grow with that - but as a man said, "if God doesn't make us mad, we're not worshiping Him but ourselves' (Karl Barth). Of course, a backyard-sized God gives results much faster, but that wouldn't be the total sum of God that has been revealed to us: a God of justice and of judgement to evil; a God of deep love and mercy to a broken humanity. 

And so I thought to myself: compared to a backyard, eight acres takes a lot longer to work at and would bring results after much more time, but it would be honest to know Him on His terms. 

We wouldn't be picking and choosing the parts we like; it wouldn't be cool if it was done to us. 

For example, I'm a big believer in fighting for the truth and care largely about family - if someone wrote a summary of my life, I'd hate if someone left that out. And we can't approach God like that; we shouldn't anyway.

God's bigger than your backyard.

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To answer two possible questions that might enter your minds:

1) Did I make that up for the blog? No, I actually thought that up while making breakfast, because I was wondering why I wrestle so much with God and don't grow in my love for Him. I did NOT labor over that for hours and hours to preach that to anyone, here or anywhere else.

2) Does God even matter, in our age? I think so. Though you're free to disagree, 

a) humans have thought about God for almost the entirety of its existence, so it could be at least tangentially important, and

b) if you have a soul that is eternal and you aren't destined to be a flowerbed in a cemetery, then you matter, and your actions matter for your eternity, and

c) don't get distracted by the screens and superstars, money and the news; everything material fades away. None of this matters as much as eternity.

So what are you doing here? Go check your backyard. 

Love you all.

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Contemplate

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 

(Jesus, Gospel of Matthew)