Posts Tagged: 2 Chronicles 6-7
“The Uncontainable God”
NAS 2 Chronicles 6:18 “But will God indeed dwell with mankind on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain Thee; how much less this house which I have built.”
This is Solomon’s prayer of dedication at the completion of the temple in Jerusalem. God’s glory falls only after Solomon finishes his prayer, acknowledging that God cannot be contained in any building (2 Chronicles 7:1). In the somewhat parallel telling of story in 1 Kings 8, Solomon only mentions God’s uncontainableness after God’s glory has filled the temple (8:27). As with all profound truths, there are several ways in which the story should and indeed, must, be told in order to convey the truth.
But in both versions of the story, one truth is front and center: God is not containable. The most elaborate, ornate, expensive, well-built building in the world cannot contain the LORD God.
God is uncontainable. No space, no person, no collection of persons, no institution, no doctrine, no political party, can contain God. God is uncontainable. The technical, theological, Latin-based word for this aspect of God is “infinity.” God is infinite—i.e., God has no limits.
And yet, I am forever battling the urge to treat God as if God were nuclear waste. I am always trying to contain God.
Why? The answer is simple: I want to be God. The first step in being God is containing God.
But, of course, the True God is not containable. So . . .
I pretend that God is containable, and that I am God! See how simple it is!
O God—and no, I am not talking to myself—please deliver me from my attempts at containing you. Help me to live in the truth of your uncontainableness today. (According to my spell checker, “uncontainableness” is not a word. My spell checker doesn’t even have a suggestion as to what word would work here. I will add the word to the dictionary.)
There! The red line under the word has been removed. Oh, Uncontainable God, help me not simply to add the word “uncontainable” to my lexicon, but to add it also to the heart’s lexicon of daily obedience. Help me to live in the reality of your uncontainableness, and not only to live in that reality, but to be swept away by that reality.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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