What We Understand About God Matters

I’m done with easy-to-swallow Christian catch phrases. You know the ones: God is good all the time. If he brought you to it, he’ll bring you through it. Let go, and let God. Only God knows—he’s in control.

These statements aren’t necessarily false, but they don’t capture the whole story, either. They often represent a shallow, one-dimensional view of ourselves, our problems, and our God. The danger is that we say or hear them so often that we start to build our theology on them.

Theology, cardiology, geology, whateverology—you might think those are big words for smart people. But don’t take off just yet, because theology, or the study of the nature of God, is much more than head knowledge. For those of us who belong to his kingdom, how we understand God impacts every decision we make. In many ways, it’s life or death stuff.

It all boils down to this: what we understand—about God, ourselves, and this world——is our theology. It directly affects how we think; how we think affects how we feel and the decisions we make; the decisions we make affect the course of our lives. What we believe about God matters.

A God I Can Grasp

Our human tendency is to shrink our understanding of God down to a size we can handle. We like it when he fits into a neat little box, and we feel comfortable with those easy-to-remember clichés. Often, we see a facet of God that we like, and we cling desperately to it because that’s who we want him to be. We want him to be tamable. We want him to be safe.

But like a diamond, the more facets of God’s character we see, the more beautiful we realize he is. We drastically diminish him when we cling only to the parts of him with which we feel the most comfortable. I’m as guilty of this as the next person. I’ve gone through seasons where I predominantly see and hold onto his sovereignty, or his protection, or his unquenchable love, or his comfort, or his delight, or even his anger. And yes, he is all of those things, but he is also so much more.

What I see as pure grace, though, is that while I am entirely limited and unable to completely grasp the enormity of God, he reveals himself in new ways all the time, allowing me to press into one more piece of his glory, to taste one more morsel of his goodness, to understand one more spark of his justice. I simply cannot hold onto all of God at once in this earthbound existence. But I can position myself to see different angles of his character and choose not to sit staring at only one lovely glimmer.

The God of “And”

Honestly, I’m tired of making God too small. When I lose sight of who I worship, who I serve, who died for me, I get all out of whack, and my emotions and circumstances can seem bigger than my heavenly Father. Fear, overwhelm, frustration, and doubt slide into the space in my heart that should be occupied by awe, trust, worship, and peace. But if I turn my eyes out and up, if I allow myself to see the train of his robe while resting in the tenderness of his embrace, my thoughts and emotions suddenly snap back in place.

So here are some verses to remind us that we worship the God of “and.” He is both good and just. Kind and fierce. Forgiving and holy. Sovereign and permissive. Unreachable and intimate. Compassionate and jealous. God and man.

• “And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’” (Exodus 34:6-7 NIV)
• “Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep.” (Psalm 36:5-6 NIV)
• “Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: ‘Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?’” (Job 38:1-7 NIV)
• “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? . . . For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
  (Romans 8:31-32, 38-39 NIV)
• “Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son . . . But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, “How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?” The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
  For many are invited, but few are chosen.’” (Matthew 22:1-2, 11-14 NIV)
• “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV)
• “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelation 22:13 NIV)

There’s no way I will ever understand God. And you know what? I simply don’t need to. What kind of God would he be if I could wrap my mind around his holiness? Today, I’m both confused and comforted by the mystery that we call God. And that is theology enough for me.

Corella Roberts is a country girl and a city girl. An introvert and a socialite. A homebody and an adventurer. But mostly, she’s simply Abba’s child. She’s married to her high school sweetheart, Troy, and they live in Thailand with their two full-of-life kids and two chubbier-than-most hamsters. She’s the author of Colliding with the Call: When Following God Takes You to the Wilderness, and her heart is to see people connect deeply with Jesus. You can find her at corellaroberts.com.

Photograph © Peter Keller, used with permission