how big is your God?

I originally wrote this for another place that I do some writing so some of you may have read it already, but I really felt like it was something I wanted to share with readers here as well. So, here it is.

Is the God you think of a God that is big and can really do anything? Is it a God who can handle every situation in life no matter how hard or confusing? Or have you put God in a box? Have you decided that there are only certain areas of life that He can handle and that you have to handle the rest on your own? How big is
your God?

I have been thinking about these questions for a while. And I think they are good questions to spend time thinking about. Because, I think the unfortunate answer to these questions is that many of do put God in a box. We allow Him to handle certain areas and not others. We do this because we do not want Him in certain areas or because we do not think He can handle certain areas. When we do this, we stop God from being able to do what He really wants to do in our lives. When we do not allow God into every area of our lives we miss out on much of what God has for us.

Far too often in my own life I put God in a box. I could be facing an important decision about something to do with work and I decide that this is one thing that I have to do all on my own. I do not spend any time seeking God and just go with what I think I should do. I have made God smaller than He really is when I do this. God is big enough to handle and help me make the right decision about things related to work, but when I decide to do it on my own I have made God smaller – made Him not big enough to handle it. I am sure if you thought about you could think of times in your own life when you have done the same thing. We are guilty of doing that.
But, the good news is that we do not have to keep doing that. God is big enough to handle it all, and we can learn to trust Him with it all. But, it takes work on our part. We have to consciously and continuously take it all to God. And we will need to declare to ourselves over and over again that God is big enough to handle it. We may even need to do that out loud so that we can hear ourselves say it.

Take some time to think about your own life. To think about the questions I asked at the beginning: Is the God I think of a God that is big and really can do anything? Is He a God who can handle every situation in my life no matter how hard or confusing? Have I put God in a box? Have I decided that there are only certain areas of life that He can handle and I must handle the rest on my own? How big is my God? Spend some time with these questions. And spend some time talking to God about them. Ask Him to show you how big He is. Ask Him to help you understand how big the God you serve really is.

Before I finish this, I want to leave you with some reminders from Scripture about how big our God is.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine . . .” Ephesians 3:20
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Genesis 18:14
“Is the Lord’s arm too short?” Number 11:23
“Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love!” Psalm 36:5-7
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 7:33-34
And Scripture is filled with many more examples of times where God stepped in as a big God in a situation – when He brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt, the numerous times that He made it possible for a barren woman to have a child. We serve a big God and Scripture is filled with examples of that. I do not want to just through Scripture out about how big God is, I want to put it out there to encourage you and challenge you to trust God more.
We serve a big God! We can trust Him with absolutely everything in our lives! But learning to do that is a process – a journey that we are one. As long as continually learning to trust our big God more and more we are moving in the right direction.

I hope this challenges you and gives you reason to think.