So What…
…does that
mean for my family?
Spotlight Verse: Acts
“’ Heaven is my throne,
And the earth is my footstool.
…do we need? A
helium balloon 2
or 3 boxes that are a variety of sizes (close to the same size as the
balloon and larger) …can we pray
for? Thank You God that You
are bigger than any boxes we try to put You in. Thank You, God, that You are so much bigger than we are. You wouldn’t be a very big God if you
were only as big as we could understand! …can we talk about? Wayne Watson sings a
song called “God in a Box” and its lyrics say this, “God ain’t gonna stay in the
little box I put Him in. He won’t be contained by
some tiny, wrapped up view of Him.” And later it says, “Lord have
mercy on our arrogant souls. Before we were us, there was you alone, I know” The
passage in Acts reminds me of this song.
The Sanhedrin had heard falsely that Stephen had spoken against the
temple. It takes 48 verses to even
get to where Stephen responds to that accusation, but he still doesn’t do
it in defense of himself. He reminds
them quite pointedly that the temple that they take such pride in is
nothing. What makes the temple holy
is not the temple itself. It is
God. And “the Most High does not
live in houses made by men” (v.48) We the creations
cannot even come close in our mightiest of attempts to construct anything
large enough to house the Creator!
Our minds can’t even come close to understanding the mind or the
ways of God. We sure do try,
though. I know that I have made
(without even consciously doing it) little boxes for God to live in. I don’t even realize how little my box
for God is until something hits and He stretches me a little farther to
step out in faith. I fuss and I
fight and when I finally give in, I realize, “Oh, yeah God. Thanks. You are bigger than that
problem.” So I give Him a bigger
box. Then something else happens
that seems to expand the seams of that box and I step out in faith and -
“Oh, yep, God’s bigger than that one, too!”
I have come to realize that the way God works in other people’s
lives is bigger than the box I make for that, too. I need to just lift the lid off my box
and let God be God!! Get
your balloon and your boxes. God is the balloon and the boxes are, well,
the boxes we try to put Him in. Put
the balloon in the smallest of the boxes.
Open the lid and the balloon flies out. It can’t be contained. Try the next size larger box. Maybe that one can contain God. No?
Well, try the next one. The
reality is that our whole house can’t even contain Him, not even the
earth! The Bible tells us that the heavens
are God’s throne and the earth His
footstool!!