Honey, I shrunk the Creator of the Universe.

I've talked before about themes popping up in my life. Last time, it was a verse in Isaiah: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" Those words continuously popped up in my life in a time when I needed to "let go and let God" (more so than usual).

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with my friends Katie and Liz. We talked over sushi about what the Lord was doing in our lives and books that had started a revolution in our walks. Mine, of course, was a Beth Moore book called "Believing God." I talked to the girls about the points that Beth makes; the one that resonated most with me was this: He is who He says He is. In other words, God is not love because I say He's love, and He's not holy because I sing "Holy, Holy, Holy." He is those things, and more, because that's who He says He is. And frankly, my tiny brain can't even fathom half of what He says He is. I think we get caught up in defining God; I say, "God is Love," because God as a big teddy bear is the easiest way to avoid feeling convicted. I say, "God is a jealous God," but that's mainly when I'd like to make a point to someone else in the wrong, rarely in regard to myself and my sin. Beth says, "All human attempts to define God cannot help but minimize Him. We somehow want to neatly package God and make everything about him explainable... We want Him to calm down and not be so... God-ish."

Last night I started Francis Chan's "Crazy Love." Right away in the foreword, Chris Tomlin introduces the phrase "God really is who He says He is." In his introduction, Chan goes on to say that "We forget that God never had an identity crisis. He knows that He's great and deserves to be the center of our lives." I don't know why something so simple blessed me so much: God never had an identity crisis. He is the same now as He was before time began... before time even existed.

In Matthew 16, Jesus asks Peter, "But who do you say that I am?" What seems like an obvious questions is, in fact, fully loaded. Who do I say that He is? I could spout off a list of phrases and adjectives: Savior, Counselor, Son of God, Creator, Friend, Love, Lamb of God, Lion of Judah... Those are the answers, right? But do I live my life worshipping a God who is what He says He is, or do I shrink Him down into my tiny, human-sized God Box, worshipping a god that is who I say he is and what I want him to be?