Recently I walked up to a customer’s house and they were in the process of moving and their house was littered in boxes and this came to mind..
“Keep God in a box???!”
We’ve all heard it and it brings into play so many thoughts, at least for me, and images that bring to life what I’m learning about this ‘God-in-a-box’ mentality.
My first visual is very ancient boxes, dating back hundreds, even thousands of years, where people before me ‘kept” God.
It gives me some assurance that I was not the first to “capture” God and put him safely within the confines of my box. He has been ‘boxed’ for thousands of years by better people then me!
The next thing I think about is the variety of boxes…there are tall boxes, short boxes, fat boxes, skinny boxes, round boxes, square boxes…
There are also locked boxes where I imagine people feel certain God is at risk and must be protected from the outside world!
There are beautifully wrapped boxes because God deserves a beautiful place to stay! Plus the ribbons add additional security. Have you ever seen people struggle trying to remove ribbon from a box.
The whole box analogy comes with the call to be an OPEN box and some of us just can’t get there ALL THE WAY…but we become closer like boxes with holes!
For me the ‘boxing God’ came to bring order from seeming chaos (in the spiritual sense). I felt certain I must box God to protect my ‘isms’, my own personal theology. A part of me was always worried that God would ‘escape’ if I opened the box and I’d never be able to find Him again. There is a security in the box, at least for me.
God hasn’t called me to security…He has called me to OPENNESS! Openness for Him means He can reach others from MY BOX. Openness for me means I can trust that the work we do will always grow and evolve as will my own wisdom through the journey.
My box is not big enough to hold God or the call God has placed on me…no one’s is!
I hope one day to completely open my box and see just where God takes me.
What kind of boxes do you keep God in?
4 Comments
September 3, 2008 at 8:53 am
I can, from time to time, keep God (or at least try) in the box of impossibilities. I guess I just forget that nothing is impossible with Him.
September 3, 2008 at 9:58 am
ones that look more like me than like Him.
September 3, 2008 at 3:59 pm
my box is striped. does that make it any better?
[this reminded me of a camp song...
"if i had a little white box, I'd put my Jesus in. I'd take Him out and *kiss*kiss*kiss* and show Him to my friends.
If i had a little black box, I'd put the devil in. I'd take him out and SMASH HIS HEAD, and put him back again".]
nice. eh?
September 3, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I think that I have always been to scared to put God in a box. He has always been soooo much bigger than anything.
He would crush my little box and then laugh at me, “Theresa Theresa Theresa, Really Now What Were You Thinking….You are My Blessed and Loved Child and I let YOU OUT OF THE BOX! Don’t you know that you can’t Hide ME? I AM ALL THINGS….I AM EVERYWHERE” I almost find it reassuring to know that he is always there…FREE OPEN ABLE to BE.