God in a box II

I stumbled onto a book, not long ago, called Jesus in a Nutshell. I found it online, and I suppose it was a joke, but it kept me thinking for a while. Why is it that thinking we’ve got God all figured out isn’t seen as extremely arrogant?

When I was a kid I went to a pretty traditional church in the heart of the Bible belt. We did church one way because we believed that that’s how God wanted it done. We believed that we had it all figured out and that even those church’s down the road who were similar to us were, at best, just a little bit wrong. A few tweaks here and there, and they would be more like us and, therefore, a lot closer to God.

As a kid I would always hear adults say that the older they got, the less they knew. I feel that way about God. Not that I know Him less, but that I’ve got less of Him figured out. I wish I could remember that though, because I often find myself ranting at groups of Christians insisting that God does not belong in their box…because He clearly belongs in mine.

I come from the generation of worshippers. You know what I’m talking about. The generation who came along in the 90’s and “brought worship back to the church”. Ugh. We really believed that. Don’t get me wrong. I think, in a lot of ways, that my generation probably did help to refocus many churches on worship, but I also think that we weren’t any different than the generations that went before us. After all, in the end we also felt that if you didn’t do church our way, you weren’t doing it right. In fact, many of us wrongfully assumed that, until our generation came along, the church really hadn’t been worshipping, at least not for a while.

Nobody knew Jesus better than John did, and yet, when Jesus appeared to him in Revelations 1, John fell on his face as if dead. Vulnerable disciples never reach a point where they “know it”, yet here we are, typing like we do.

As I shared in my last post, I spent this past weekend in Edinburgh. It was my second visit to the city, and I got to visit one of my favourite spots on the planet while I was there. The above picture was taken inside a small chapel that is part of Edinburgh’s castle. The chapel is about 900 years old and is the oldest building in all of Edinburgh. King David II (not that King David) built it in honor of his mother Margaret, who would go on to be St. Margaret. The chapel is extremely small, only fitting 20 people, but it’s amazing. I’d love to have one of these in my back yard.