(Not Actual Size)

Its Christmas time and that means catalogs – hundreds of catalogs – in my mailbox everyday. I usually like catalogs. I don’t order much but I like to see what’s in style, what I should be wearing and am not. See what furniture my living room should have in it but doesn’t or see what techie gadgets and things I don’t know how to use but would make my life so much easier, and more expensive, if I did.

Yes, I love to daydream by catalog. But this time of year it’s just too much. I can’t keep up. And as I did order a few gifts from the catalogs I had a chance to read, I am now doomed to receive mountains more.

One thing that is tough about buying from a catalog as opposed to an in-store physical purchase is that I don’t have the opportunity to see, feel and evaluate the item. Things invariably look different in pictures. If its clothes the fabric could be different than I thought. If it’s a thing it could be altogether different than expected because for starters it’s a different size in real life than in the picture.

Some catalogs blow pictures up to show detail then add – in small detail – the disclaimer “(Not Actual Size)” to warn me that the diamond earrings I’m ordering are going to be smaller than the 2x2 photo. (Disclaimer – I’ve never ordered diamonds from a catalog.) Like I actually need to be told the earrings were not going to be the size of postage stamps. Clearly some wise guy lawyer (like me) got in the way, errr, tried to be helpful. But I’ve also seen this disclaimer in food catalogs – “be careful, the cookies you are about to order are not going to be the size of a salad plate, we just blew them up to show off the sugar detail.” Duh.

There is a situation when I think the disclaimer would come in handy. I think God should project it from time to time, sort of like the bat-signal – just to remind me.

I have a habit at times of treating God as just a regular kind of guy. Jesus was a man after all and for what I can tell He was not abnormally tall or large. He was just a regular guy for His day. It helped Him fit in. And take the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives inside me. I’m not a big person – 5’8, 127 lbs. So when I think of the Holy Spirit I don’t imagine anyone bigger than me. God, Himself, I see as my Beloved – the One who loves me and protects me and guides me. In my walk with Him I talk to Him, pray to Him, yell at Him sometimes, listen to Him and try to follow Him the best I can. So when I communicate with Him I’m communicating, in my heart, with a regular size God, a God who fits in my passenger seat.

What I fail to do, however, is see Him, really see Him. I mean I think I see Him – at least I say I do. Every time I see a sunset or a beautiful baby or a magnificent mountain peak I say “Wow, look at that. That is God in all His glory.” But even that is selling Him short. The physical body Jesus took and the Holy Spirit taking up residence inside of me are just portals for God to interact with me. They have nothing to do with His size, His abilities, His presence.

I think the reason I do is because my human brain just can’t comprehend how vast and glorious He actually is. He is my God, handling my problems, counting and protecting the hairs on my head, while at the same time He is your God, handling your problems, counting and protecting the hairs on your head, while at the same time doing the exact same thing for each and every soul on the planet – whether they love Him or not because He loves them regardless. (That’s a lot of people my friends.) If there was one thing, person, Being that needed to carry the (Not Actual Size) disclaimer God would be it.

There is, in fact, no size to God and I think that is the point. I try to put Him in a box or category or character to make Him manageable – so I can manage Him! Now if that’s not the tail wagging the dog. No wonder I get frustrated and angry and lost when I can’t solve my problems. I’m not supposed to be the one solving them. But when I just see an average size God I don’t trust that He’s big enough to handle the troubles I’ve got.

Talk about your (Not Actual Size). Turns out that God is huge, ginormous, God-sized. He’s so big I can’t see all of Him at once. He’s clever; He only shows me the parts of Him that I need at any given moment. He doesn’t want to overload my human-sized brain. But my brain, and my heart, knows that all of Him is there. With arms that can stretch around the world a thousand times in one hug; with a heart so big the love it pours out fills every ocean in just one drop, and with grace so vast and endless the earth will physically turn to dust before He can stop bestowing it. That’s the size of my God.

I don’t want an average size God. I want a God-size God. And luckily for me that’s the size He shipped.

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