The Awesomeness of God

"My last sermon before I was arrested was on the awesomeness of God. My congregation didn't understand it. Neither did I, I wondered about what I said. Now I begin to understand, because I understand less and less what God is doing with me" Richard Wurmbrand (If Prison Walls Could Speak)

I found this quote in a book I'm reading and it really hit me. We always talk about how God is awesome, and we are usually referring to how good he is, or maybe a specific thing that He has done for us. We rave about how awesome God is when He fits in the box that we have created in our minds for Him. Then, when He does something that we don't understand, we begin to question Him:

Why are you doing this? What happened to your goodness? Where are you now?

Then as we go through it and eventually see Him work the good out of the situation, we begin to understand, and again talk about how 'awesome' He is. It is like we limit His awesomeness to our understanding. As long as we can see and understand how what He is doing is good, He is awesome. But when we don't understand it then we question His goodness and His awesomeness. There are even a multitude of people in the world who have rejected God because they did not understand Him. We often hear the question:

If there is a good, all powerful God then why is there evil in the world?

or

How could God just be, how could He come out of nothing?

or

Why did God have to take the punishment of sin on Himself, why couldn't He just do away with the punishment altogether?

We hear all these questions and then we as Christians try to make up rational explanations so that it can make sense. We think that in order to convince people that God is real and that God is awesome, that we have to get them to understand Him. But by definition the fact that we do not understand Him is the very thing that makes Him so awesome. It is the fact that He does not fit in our man-made box that inspires awe in us, or in other words, if we could understand Him perfectly He would not be awesome.

I think it is great that we can not understand God. For one, it gives us something to strive for. We can spend the rest of our lives seeking after Him and attempting to better understand Him and when we get to heaven we will still be shocked, and in awe for eternity at how great He is and how wise He is. Secondly, what kind of creator would He be if His creation could fully understand Him. Think about the science fiction movies with the robots. Even though robots are always more intelligent than humans, because they can simply enter data and store it, they will never understand their creator. They are always trying to understand humans but never can. Why do humans do things that are against logic? Why do humans cry? or laugh? The creator is always more complex than the creation! So why do we continually act surprised when God does something that we do not understand? Why do we wonder when He does something differently than we would?

We need to continue to strive to know God more, but we must also understand that we will never completely understand Him. Maybe I understand Him better than a new believer, because I have spent more time studying His Word, and more time in His presence, but there is still so much that I do not understand. This is why we can learn from anyone. This is why we can always learn more. Keep striving after God! He is awesome!