“…I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.” Ps. 73:23

Parents often ask their young children a very important question.  Grandparents ask it too.  “How big are you?  Soooo big!”

I’m deeply convinced that the way we live is a consequence of the size of our God and the problem that most of us have is our God is too small. We are not convinced that we are absolutely safe in the hands of a fully competent, all knowing, ever present, utterly loving God who is so big.

If I wake up in the morning and I go through the day with a shrunken God, there are consequences. I will live in a constant state of fear and anxiety because everything depends on me and my mood will be governed by whatever circumstances hit me that day.

When I have a need, if I live with a shrunken God, I will find it unnatural to pray because I’m not really sure, to be honest, that God makes a difference and that prayer matters.

If I live with a shrunken God, when I need to give somebody a strong word of confrontation or challenge, I will pull my punches because if I don’t live in the security of a big God’s acceptance, then I become a slave to whatever other people think of me.

If I face temptation to speak deceitful words to avoid trouble, I’ll do it. Or if I can get credit for something at work that doesn’t really belong to me, if I don’t trust there’s a God who sees in secret and then rewards one day, I’ll do it.

Somebody gets mad at me or disapproves of me and I get all twisted up in knots because I won’t have the security of knowing that if a giant God loves me, cares for me as a Father, then what difference does it make how people think I am doing?

When human beings shrink God, they offer prayer without faith, worship without awe, serve without joy, suffer without hope, and the result is a life of stagnation and fear, a loss of vision, an inability to persevere and see it through.

And it’s against this backdrop the writers of Scripture never tire of telling us, “You do not live with a little tribal God.”

Whatever you need, God is bigger. Whatever your weakness, God is stronger.

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness,

The power and the glory,

The victory and the majesty;

For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours;

Yours is the kingdom, O Lord,

And You are exalted as head over all.  1 Chronicles 29:11 (NKJV)