Do we put a limit on our God?

It may seem like a silly question since we are in no position to do so but I pose the question all the same.  More accurately the question could be framed – do we put a limit on our expectations of our God? For me, and I suspect for many of you, the answer is yes. 

One of the many effects of this recent Coronavirus pandemic has been the opportunity it has given me to reflect on how I frequently sell my God short.  What this far-reaching and temporarily lifestyle-altering outbreak has done is it has provided The Big Villain.  It has presented a large-scale, all-consuming, ever-present danger that we cannot ignore, will not surrender to and are prepared to fight with our full arsenal including the mighty power of our God through prayer.  This seems like a proportional response – the bigger the villain, the bigger the fight, the bigger the prayer.  And I would bet that many of us have been praying big prayers lately.  Prayers for miraculous healing, for widescale blessing of the millions who are suffering from the health or economic consequences, even for the complete eradication of the disease.  These are BIG prayers for BIG problems and they are absolutely what we need. 

What this has made me realize, however, is how these big prayers had become less of a part of my daily life prior to the pandemic.  I find that I sometimes consider certain problems or certain request to be just too big to expect God to handle.   I take the attitude that he can help with these little daily things, but let’s be real, he’s not going to fix a major chronic disease or a longstanding bitter family divide – those are permanent.  I had come to treat God like a low level employee.  Sure I can trust you to make some copies but don’t try to run the company, we know you can’t handle that.  Stay in your lane God! 

In my life this falsely limited view of God applies especially to my health.  Many of you may have heard me speak about my heart condition.  This is something I have been dealing with since 2008 and if I’m being honest I have to admit that I stopped praying for full healing long ago.  Certainly I still pray for this problem but my prayers are now smaller.  I pray that each surgical procedure will go well.  I pray that things will be ok at my checkups and that when the alarm on my defibrillator goes off it won’t be anything serious.  For some reason I have given up on the idea that God is big enough to eradicate this disease from my body, to restore my heart fully and let me run again.  I can trust God with the little hiccups along the way but in my heart I have lost my faith in his ability to triumph over The Big Villain.  I have succumbed to the idea that it will always be with me. 

This lack of faith manifest itself back in November when my defibrillator alarm started going off for unknown reasons.  It was happening over the weekend so I was unable to get an answer as to the cause until Monday.   That Sunday at church I went up for prayer thinking that I could certainly trust God with this lesser concern…this was something that was within his power.  I went up to Rigo to ask for prayer about the source of the problem with the device and he suggested a radical alternative.  He said “why don’t we pray for healing of your heart as well?”.  What a concept!  Actually taking my biggest prayer, my longest-standing problem, the area in which I had given up hope and bringing THAT to the almighty God as if He can handle such a thing (He can).  It was a sign of how far I had slipped into my mental limitation of God that it never even crossed my mind to ask for actual healing.

There is no reason that we should ever get to this point because we serve a God who is both willing and able to handle any prayer we have no matter how big or small.  His willingness is stated perfectly in Romans 8 (as most things are) when Paul writes:

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?  (v.32)

Any parent knows that this is a willingness that surpasses understanding.  That is the God to whom we bring our prayers.

We also know he is able to handle even the BIGGEST of prayers and tackle the mightiest of villains.  There are countless examples of this but it is written well in Job:

            He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;

            he suspends the Earth over nothing.

            He wraps up the waters in his clouds,

            yet the clouds do not burst under their weight…

            He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and

            darkness.

            The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke.

            By his power he churned up the sea;

            By his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.

            By his breath the skies became fair;…

            And these are but the outer fringes of his works;

            How faint the whisper we hear of him!

            Who then can understand the thunder of his power? (Job 26:7-14)

When we pray to a God who is that willing and that able there should never be a problem considered too big to take to God.  And it shouldn’t take a global pandemic to make me or any of us realize this.  I have no doubt that there are people out there with big problems that they have been dealing with for months, years or decades.  After a while it is only natural to accept these as part of life and not give them the prayer attention that they need.   I want to remind myself and encourage all of you to not think that anything is too big or has gone on for too long for our God to conquer swiftly and completely.  There is no Big Villain that even compares to the God who set the horizon in its place and suspends the Earth over nothing.  There is no disease no matter how dire or lifelong that the great physician cannot eradicate with the swipe of his hand.  There is no strife or struggle that our Lord cannot bring to an immediate end and replace with joy and peace. 

Let’s not wait until the next global catastrophe to remember that.  Don’t be afraid to pray BIG….every day.