Is Your God In A Box?

Do you keep God in a box?

Is He in your "Sunday box"? The box you only use once a week - if it's convenient, or less often if it's not. Is He the God you take out of the Sunday box so you can dust Him off and take Him to church with you? If you bother to go. Or if you bother to take Him with you.

Do you keep God in a "special occasion box"? You only get that box out when you really need it. You know, when your grandma is really sick or your best friend is in an accident or your husband loses his job.

Is your God in a box that defines Him by popular opinion or political correctness? Does your understanding of who God is depend on what culture says (or doesn't say!) about Him?

Or do you have Him in some other kind of box? Some box of your own design and making. A box of your cultural or ethnic origin, or your political persuasion. Are you trying to make God fit into your box rather than you being fitted into Him?

I'm afraid that many of us have our God in a box. We know so little about Him and His ways that we box Him into what we do know. And sadly, much of what we know is either inaccurate or inadequate.

But if we really get to know Him in all His fulness, we can no longer keep Him boxed up! It's easy to say "I want to know God". It's a much greater challenge to actually live that out. To be willing to submit our will, our desires, our plans, to His will and His purposes.

After all, what if He expects us to change our lifestyle? To change our culture? To move to some faraway place? What if He sends us to Africa? Or Siberia? What if He expects us to give up things or people that are really important to us? What if?

How much do you love God? How much do you really want to know Him? How much are you willing to do what He says?

Are you willing, as A. W. Tozer put it, to follow hard after God?

"Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee......"  (A. W. Tozer, from The Pursuit of God, chapter 1, "Following Hard After God")

Or are you content to leave Him in your box?

"My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me."  (Psalm 63:8 KJV)