On that day
they will say to Jerusalem,
“Do not fear, Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
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 3:16 – 17)
I’ve been thinking long and hard about one sentence from the verse above – “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.”
I don’t think of God as a warrior. I’ve always imagined Michael the Archangel in that role.
I don’t think of God as a nurturer. That’s more Mother Mary’s role, right?
And Jesus? He’s like the big brother part of God, right?
I was forcing God into a box so that my brain could make sense of who he is. That is where many of us stumble. God cannot be put into a box. He is so much more than what we can imagine.
Before I came back to the Christian church, I practiced the Norse religion, Asatru, which has a god and goddess for about everything. Coming back was a big transition for me. I had a hard time resetting my brain to grasp that God was more than who I’d been worshipping for years. Reading Paul’s words in Acts chapter 17 helped.
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’c]
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:22 – 30)
God is more than any human being can ever imagine. God is unfathomable. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that sometimes – and Paul shows us that it’s not a new problem. How many people felt (and still feel) that God can only be found in a temple or a church?
“…we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.”
I love this verse for a few reasons. It humbles me by reminding me how small I am, that I am a sinner and because of God’s grace and love I can be forgiven. It amazes me by reminding me that just as I cannot fathom the depths of the oceans nor the distance to the stars, I cannot fathom the depth of God. It inspires me to keep talking to God, to keep leaning on Him when life is difficult because if God is more than I can imagine, then His LOVE is even greater.
Thank you, God, for reminding me that you are not a God that can be understood. You are greater than anything anyone could ever imagine. Help me remember that when I need nurturing or a warrior or a brother – that You are all that and so so much more. There is no other that I need. What an incredible blessing that is. Amen.