Don’t Fence Me in – Making God Small
I love the look of old split rail fences. This one stands along the trail at Fish Trap Creek in Abbotsford.
I took the picture yesterday on my stroll around the lake loop. I’m not sure that lake is the correct term; it is more of a marshy pond area where the creek widens.
For about ½ the trail, I was accompanied by a chickadee. It stayed just ahead or behind me for more than a kilometre. It was a tease, staying close but never still long enough to get a clear photograph. The little chickadee even landed on various sections of the fence at times.
As I walked and thought about the fences, an old cowboy song ran through my head, “Don’t Fence Me in.” The song was written in 1934 by Cole Porter and made famous by singing cowboys Gene Autry and Roy Rogers,
That got me thinking about God. We often try and domesticate Him and fence Him in, trying to make him in our image.
People often have a small image of God. That’s inaccurate because God has no mass, so He has no size. He created everything in the universe, so He has power beyond comprehension. We think of Him as being “big” because we cannot describe the indescribable.
When we make God “small,” we miss out. How do we make Him small?
We make God small by expecting Him to act in precisely the manner we want Him to perform. We do not articulate it this way, but we say we know better than God by practice.
Sometimes we don’t even look for Him and opt for prayer as a last resort rather than a first strike tool.
At times our theology gets in the way. We decide that God can only or cannot act in a particular manner based on our view of Him. Theology is reasonable and necessary, but it must always accurately reflect the Scriptures.
We reduce Him by doubting His Word and promises.
We make God small by relying on our feelings rather than the truth of God’s Word.
His ways are not our ways.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9
Trying to fence God in is less effective than lassoing the wind. We cannot do it.
The Lord will go where He wants and do what He wants, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it.
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Numbers 23:19
He is the sovereign creator of all that is, and we are fallen creatures made from the dust of the ground.
When we try to fence the Lord in, we steal His glory.
We would do well remembering the words in Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21
Our Lord can do more than we could ever imagine. Let’s allow Him free rein in our lives. Let’s open the gates and stop trying to fence Him in.
Hallelu Yah (Praise God)
Be blessed.
Kevin.
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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV). Spelling modified to Canadian English as required.
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