Monday, July 11, 2011

Your God Is Too Small

When Jackie and I left Charlotte, NC for the opportunities that awaited us in Lexington, KY, my Sunday School teacher gave me a book that he thought I would enjoy.  I read it immediately and appreciate Tommie Mull for giving it to me.

In 1989, I thought the perspective was timeless because J.B. Phillips was writing down truths in 1961 that were relevant to the events and technology of 1989.

On a recent hiking trip in NC, I decided to re-read this book and have determined it still to be timeless in 2011.

C.S. Lewis wrote the Screwtape Letters to help us see how demons are restricted, limited in scope, and how their tactics to speak to us from time to time in the first person as though they were us.  A fictional piece that aligned with the truth.

J.B. Phillips works from a different direction.  He lists several destructive views of God that we have created in our own finite minds that keep us from understanding the limitlessness of God.  Those views are often a result of good experiences with people that have been inspiring and helpful to us.

I'll list a few of those destructive associations that we have made between a limitless God and a limited image of God.
  • Resident Policeman
  • Parental Hangover
  • Grand Old Man
  • Meek and Mild
  • Absolute Perfection
  • Heavenly Bosom
  • God-in-a-box
  • Managing Director
  • Second-Hand God
  • Perennial Grievance
  • Pale Galilean
  • Projected Image
  • Assorted

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