God in the Gaps

Sometime in life we need to stretch a little.  Our goal is just a little beyond out grasp.  It is so close that we can almost touch it.  Almost.  Maybe we are stretching to make ends meet or to squeeze in too many things into a too busy schedule.  Maybe we are confronting a health issue beyond our control or relationship problems that are a bit beyond what we can do on our own.  It is at those moments when our objective is beyond our reach, when we can't quite do it on our own that we are most likely to turn to God to fill in the gaps.  We ask God to fill in what we can't do on our own.

Sometimes God becomes a gap filler in our understanding of how the world works.  There was a time when people thought of outer space and Heaven as being the same thing.  Everything seen, but not understood was attributed to God, His Will and His Nature.  In this way of looking at the world, every why and how gets answered with God until we know better.  But here's the problem with that approach.  We end up with an ever expanding view of the world and an ever diminishing view of God.

Let me explain.  God is.  He is the Alpha and the Omega.  He is the Great I am.  There is nothing. NOTHING. That any human could do to diminish God.  But if we allow our understanding of God to be restricted to our gaps, then when we grow, He shrinks.

When we see God as the one who helps us through a tight financial pinch, then as we make more money, God seems less.  When we see God as the one who helps us through physical health, then as we get healthier, God seems less.  And if we see God as the answer to questions about nature, then as our understanding grows, God seems less.

The trick is to see God in all things.  We need to see God in richer and poorer, in sickness and in health.  We need to see God in our ignorance and our discoveries. 

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

In the 1616 Galileo tried to describe the tides by the motion of the Earth and the Moon around the Sun.  The members of the inquisition had a view of God that was too small to include both Him and a moving Earth.  But still it moves.  We need to allow our view of God to expand with the amount of His nature that he shares with us.  God is relevant everywhere, not only in the gaps.