A.W. Tozer once said the most important thing about you is what comes to mind when you think about God. Why is this the most important thing about you?
Because how you think about God will determine who you become.
You aren’t just the byproduct of “nature” and “nurture.” You are a byproduct of your God-picture. And that internal picture of God determines how you see everything else.
Most of our problems are not circumstantial. Most of our problems are perceptual. Our biggest problems can be traced back to an inadequate understanding of who God is. Our problems seem really big because our God seems really small. We don’t grasp how sovereign and in control of everything He is.
Tozer said, “a low view of God…is the cause of a hundred lesser evils.” But a person with a high view of God “is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems.”
A low view of God and a high view of God are the difference between scaredy-cats and lion chasers. Scaredy-cats are filled with fear because their God is so small. Lion chasers know that their best thought about God on their best day falls infinitely short of how great God really is.
Astronomers have spied galaxies 12.3 billion light-years from earth. To put that distance into perspective, consider the fact that light, traveling 186,000 miles per second, only takes eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles between the sun and planet earth. By the time it reaches us, our sunlight is only eight minutes old. But light from the furthest galaxy takes 12.3 billion light years to get here. That distance is virtually incomprehensible! And God says that is at least the distance between His thoughts and our thoughts. Your best thought about God on your best day falls 12.3 billion light-years short of how great and how good God really is.
Maybe it’s time we stop creating God in our image, and let Him create us in His. The more we grow, the bigger God should get (perceptually). And the bigger God gets, the smaller our lions will become.
“My thoughts are completely different from yours,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NLT)
Today’s devotional adapted from Mark Batterson’s, In A Pit With A Lion on A Snowy Day.
P.S. I came across Nehemiah 9:5-6 in my daily reading: “Praise his glorious name! It is far greater than we can think or say. You alone are the LORD. You made the skies and the heavens and all the stars. You made the earth and the seas and everything in them. You preserve and give life to everything, and all the angels of heaven worship you.” How fitting.