Men are famous for their ability to compartmentalize their
lives. It is as if we are able to place
all relevant connected things into a container and put it on a shelf in our
mind someplace. While engaging in an
activity … say sports of one kind or another, we are completely subsumed in the
current actions taking place. When it is
over, we can put away our thoughts and feelings, back into the box, back up on
the shelf. Then it is time to take down
the next one and live there for a while, say the “work” box, or the “boyfriend”
box. This idea of segregating one set of
activities from another allows men to see each other within different contexts. A man can view another person as a friend in
one context, and as a sports adversary in another (without ruining the
friendship).
Of course this only works if there are a set of general
rules we can apply to the related activities.
Sports are a good example, because the rules of the game (both official
and unofficial) are widely known and accepted.
But relationships too can be put into a box since the requirements are
pretty well known and the behavior is also fairly predictable. The routines that develop in this kind of
thinking appear to be the goal of living this way. It boils down to predictability and shared
contextual experience.
Then there is God.
Man seems to have an overwhelming need to fully understand what God
is. If we could fully understand Him
though, it would probably mean He was not God after all. This logical fallacy aside, we still seem to
pursue trying to put God into one of our famous box style containers. We hurl out 2-5 adjectives to describe God
and hope this is enough to cover it.
It’s not. We use the example of
Christ taking on humanity to somehow try to limit God to our context. But He cannot be limited. We generalize, summarize, and paraphrase –
but all to no avail. It is when we
believe we have succeeded in putting God into a box, that the most heinous lies
about His character are developed and cherished in our minds.
For example, there are those who believe that the God of the
Old Testament had no idea about the plan of salvation. There was no effort made to save man from his
sins, only to punish him for them. They
believe the God of the Old Testament to be a God of war, of anger, and of
punishment. When placed in this context
and left there, all the scripture that speaks to love is ignored in favor of
all the scripture that outlines the mistakes of man, and the violence that
ensues. This view of God is logically
incorrect (evil things self destruct), and a more careful read of OT scripture
would prove it out. But first the context
of the reader must be enlightened to see love at every turn, rather than to
ignore it in favor of violence.
Another group of believers put God into a box of love. This would be more accurate if they did not
also limit love to having no sense of justice, logic, or long term views. New Testament believers, who place God in the
Love box, throw out the Old Testament as just allegorical stories to inspire
morality. They believe that once you are
saved, you are always saved. And they
tend to believe that it does not matter what you do, cause God has forgiven you
for it anyway. These people twist the
concept of love, into a free-for-all for evil behavior. Love does not seek us to harm ourselves and
others, only evil does. Love tries to
save us from pain and evil, but this is overlooked as the entire concept is
designed only to excuse sin, rather than escape sin.
Both groups would benefit from a quick look at simple truths
such as the extinction of evil in the universe.
Those that believe love will tolerate evil forever are wrong. Evil will be both punished and then
exterminated. Those that believe God is
only the God of anger, and killing; will have a hard time explaining why the
supposed “author” of these things would get rid of them for all time throughout
the universe. There will come a time
when evil is no more, when all sentient beings will only continually choose to
do good forever and ever. This
experiment the universe has tolerated will be ended by the eternal choices of
all of its participants.
When we put God into a box of any kind, we tend to limit
what He can do. It is the nature of the
box to “confine” its contents. But some
things just do not fit well in boxes, love is one of them. Just when you think you know what love truly
is, it grows again. Have you ever looked
at someone or something and told yourself you could never feel anything for
that item or person? Then some time
later you find yourself with deeply held genuine feelings of affection for the
very thing you used to be so casual about?
It happens. Love can do
this. You can find love in your teens
and rediscover it in your thirties. You
can endure the traumas of evil, heal from the wounds of self inflicted pain,
and find love that endures is even stronger than you ever thought possible. Love can do this.
When you take love and your relationships out of the boxes
you create for them, you allow them to grow in new dimensions you never thought
possible. The very act of mentally
freeing the objects of your affection from the containers you have tried to
define them within is liberating and surprising. Do you know your spouse or significant
other? How well? How long?
Even if your answer is years, or decades, guess what – there is more for
you to learn. Just because you think you
know someone, does not mean you truly do.
More often, it is a form of self deceit.
The same is true of God.
There is no way that God can be limited; this is the very nature of the
infinite. We are not meant to get our
minds fully wrapped around the nature of God, because since He is infinite, it
would require an infinite amount of time to do so. And good news; He has seen fit to give us
this long. It is not the end of the
journey that will be half so important, it is the fact that we travel on
it. We pursue a deeper knowledge of God,
knowing that we will never know it all, but that we can know more and more each
day. That knowledge enriches us. It makes our lives more full. It helps us understand love better. And the positive thoughts and feelings we get
from the pursuit will be infinite, as our journey will be infinite.
It is time for us to free our minds from the sub-containers
we construct within it. It is time we
allow for the power of God to made manifest in our lives in ways we could not
even conceive of. But that is the point;
we do not have to conceive of them, to see them accomplished. We can submit, and rest in the lap of our
infinite God, as He works out His will in our lives. This is the beauty of trusting the source of all
that is good, we need have no fear, whatever God brings, even the things we
cannot quickly understand, are for our well being, and for the benefit of
others. I praise our infinite God for
the wonder I will never fully understand, and for the opportunity He has
provided to prove it …
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