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When I was about eight my family got a new T.V., a pretty sizeable one. I was incredibly excited. I wasn’t excited so much about the T.V. as about what it came in. You all know what I’m talking about. Big T.V.’s come in giant boxes. I played with that box for like a week. Hid in it, slept in it, drew on it, drove it (like a car), flew it (like a boxy space ship), I even rode it down the stairs somehow managing to avoid any serious injuries. I couldn’t get enough of that box. Then, like most little kids my short attention span diverted my attention to the next awesome thing I found. I think Christians…well all humans really have this huge (and if you ask me, strange) obsession with boxes. Think about it. When someone commits a crime they are sent to prison where they spend all day in a cell (that’s a box). When someone commits a crime in prison they are sent to a different cell with less light and no people. I hear people say all the time that they just couldn’t work in a cubicle. “Spend all day in a box? No way!” This is the one that really gets me though: I often hear Christians say, “I’ve got to stop putting God in a box,” or “It’s hard for me to let God out of the box I’ve put him in, you know?” Everyone always just nods and says, “I know exactly what you mean,” all sympathetically. We aren’t the only ones too. Solomon freaked out when he realized he was trying to contain God in a box (notably the temple). So, if we all acknowledge this fallacy why do we keep trying to box up God? I don’t know, but I believe it’s in our nature. We want to contain things. If I have learned anything from this course and the reading it is this: We can’t contain God. There are Christians today everywhere in the world because the mission of God is at work in the world.
-Jack
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I see this in my own life as I try to discover who I am and how that fits into my calling.. and what my calling is.. I try to figure out if it would actually work. I want to know what is coming. I try to put my future in a box instead of waiting to see what God will do. I put my future in a box and I readjust it when something changes, always wanting to be prepared.
I think we like to put our own little boxes around our own little worlds so that we do have that sort of control and nothing bad can break in. And we like to think that God lives in that box with us so we shape Him to fit. But it’s so encouraging to remember that God fits outside my boxes and outside my world and is doing something bigger. He’s bigger than my understanding and just what I can do.
Solomon had to box God, because that was the only way to get Him, but now we have the Holy Spirit, which would recycle that cardboard box that we try to put it in.
The church does tend to put God in a box, which is tough and annoying at times. The awesome thing is, God can’t be contained, he will go where he pleases no matter how hard we try to contain him. I love that we are encouraged in this class to think creatively, breaking down our own box. Thank you Jack, you are a great man.
I understand this completely. Not only was I definitely THAT kid, but it gets me thinking about the church too. I mean, if God can’t be put in a box, then neither can his church! Part of being imaginative, I guess.
Awesome picture for such a debilitating thing we do as Christians. That really got me, especially the line about us just wanting to contain things. It’s a power issue. We are scared of something we cannot contain or get our minds around, and it seems that God is just blowing our boxes apart!
Thanks for the post Jack. This is a really good point up. You’ve definitely brought up something that a lot of Christians do and seemingly ignore or just put up with. How do you think we’re supposed to combat the idea of putting God in a box? What does it mean to not do this when we have such human minds? Thank you for inspiring these questions in my mind.