I believe that we limit God much more than He limits himself, and that our understanding of God is limited because we are afraid to test the boundaries of our understanding. My writing will intentionally challenge those boundaries, and even though I may make mistakes in how I view and present Him, will continually pursue the limitless God in my life and in my writing.
One of my favorite quotations in all of the many books I have read comes from Your God Is Too Small by J. B. Phillips, who also did a version of the Bible. The quote goes (and I hope I get it right):
“The continuous emergence of the God beyond God is the mark of creative courage in the religious sphere.”
His book is really about how we try to pigeonhole God, how we try to understand Him by limiting Him to what limits us. But God is much, much bigger than we can ever imagine. He is not limited by our narrow-mindedness, by our weakness, by our exclusivity. He is not afraid to consider new ideas, or to let His followers express such ideas. He allows freedom because He is big enough to understand that unless we follow Him wholeheartedly and because it is our idea, then we really aren’t following Him.
Going back to Phillips’ quote, I see it as a priority for any God-believer who considers his or herself creative to challenge those envelopes, or as they say, “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” That quote, couple with my own spiritual experience, is the driving force behind what I do as a writer. And I see it continuing for many years to come.
There are many kinds of people out there in the world, and as you jolly well know, they disagree on about everything. Doesn’t that tell you that there are myriad ways to tell others about God? If so, why aren’t we being more creative when we talk about God?
The Great Adventure 