Is Your God too Small?

OPENING PRAYER. . .Loving God, Creator of all that is, here I am--today in this place that you have given me, with all the senses you have given me. Help me to use them to experience you on a deeper level. May I experience you all around me, open me to know more of your ways and know that your goodness surrounds me. Thank you for this time to be with you, to be still and to just listen. Amen

LISTEN: "When some in the crowd heard these words, they said, “This man is truly the prophet.” ⁴¹ Others said, “He’s the Christ.” But others said, “The Christ can’t come from Galilee, can he? ⁴² Didn’t the scripture say that the Christ comes from David’s family and from Bethlehem, David’s village?” ⁴³ So the crowd was divided over Jesus. ⁴⁴ Some wanted to arrest him, but no one grabbed him.
⁴⁵ The guards returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked, “Why didn’t you bring him?”
⁴⁶ The guards answered, “No one has ever spoken the way he does.”
⁴⁷ The Pharisees replied, “Have you too been deceived? ⁴⁸ Have any of the leaders believed in him? Has any Pharisee? ⁴⁹ No, only this crowd, which doesn’t know the Law. And they are under God’s curse!”
⁵⁰ Nicodemus, who was one of them and had come to Jesus earlier, said, ⁵¹ “Our Law doesn’t judge someone without first hearing him and learning what he is doing, does it?” John 7:40-51

CONSIDER: In this reading today, Nicodemus tries to save Jesus from prejudicial condemnation, a verdict rendered before all the facts have been heard.  "The verdict first and then the evidence," says the Red Queen of Alice in Wonderland.  Many times we think that the outcome is rigged in courts with political bias.  The question is, do we judge God in the same irrational way? Do we create a picture of God that is unworthy of the name and then decide we don't believe in this unbelievable God?  Have we already decided that God is hard to please and then allow that prejudice to justify our distance from God?

SO WHAT:  Maybe our view of God is too small. Making God small may seem to justify our distance from God that we try and maintain.  Each of us has a picture of God in our mind's eye, whether we ever speak it or not. The only question is whether that image is ample or cramped, more right or more wrong. I think we need to stop putting limits on our God. We need to open our hearts and minds to the infinite love and mercy that is our God. Infinite. . . immeasurable. . . endless. . .boundless . . .love and mercy. There is no end to the love and mercy that God has for those who believe. The only end to this is the "end" that we place on it. The only explanation of a small God is the explanation we make that limits God in our mind's eye.

• What do I believe about God?
• What keeps me skeptical about God?
• Do I listen to a worldview of God?
• How do I understand the infinite love and mercy of God?

PRAYER: Lord, on my own I can do nothing. In your infinite love and mercy, sustain me and allow me to see the view of You that is true. Help me to accept your infinite love and mercy that You have for me. Amen