Putting God in a Box

Four times this weekend, God has given me major food for thought about how I want to limit him in this adoption journey. I have a box that I keep trying to keep Him in, and somehow, I'm feeling that He may have a different idea.

The first was this quote that I found on the same blog that I found the orphanage pictures. It comes from the book "Seizing Your Divine Moment" :

I am convinced that God longs to put His fingerprint in our lives, to act on our behalf and surprise us with His magnificence. I am equally convinced that most of the time we do not give God a context in which to do this. The mundane is not really the best context for a miracle. When we play it safe, we squeeze God out of the formula. If we go only where we know and do what we're certain will succeed, we remove our need for God. Whenever we respond to God's invitation, our need for God becomes heightened. Whenever we take on a God-sized challenge, self-sufficiency is no longer an option.

The second was a quote in a devotion that I read on the Proverbs 31 Ministries website. When a women who's best friend and husband had died, was asked how she was really doing, she answered, "I have stood in front of my Sunday school class and taught the sufficiency of God for 30 years. If I can’t live that out now, what does it really mean?”

The third was a movie Pat and I watched last night.....Little Miss Sunshine.....weird movie, wouldn't recommend it, although I did laugh my guts out at the end. Anyway, there was a part in the movie where a teenage boy is talking to his uncle about wishing he could sleep off his teenage years. Here's their conversation:

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: You know Marcel Proust?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

I don't know why that part of the movie stuck with me so much, probably the idea that suffering and pain are not the enemy. Although the movie probably wouldn't attribute it to this, I believe this is a biblical concept.

I wrote in an earlier post that I am hoping for a baby or a toddler, or at least a boy who is younger than Amy. Because our girls are so young and still needing me so much, we also put on our application that we weren't open to any special needs. This past week on the yahoo groups, there have been discussions about children who have special needs that are desperately needing homes. It got me thinking about where my heart is at. If God said, "I have an older boy for you than you are thinking." or "I have a little boy for you with special needs," how would I feel? Would I obey? How would I know if God was leading us in that direction? Regardless of how God leads, I think the questions are good for me to ask myself. Am I limiting God? I hope not.

We go to the Saturday night service at our church, so the final food for thought item was the closing of the sermon tonight. Our pastor was teaching on Luke chapter 7. Luke 7:23 stood out to me, "And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” And also after Jesus talks about how the people looked at John the Baptist and said, "He's too radical for me," yet looked at Jesus and said, "He's too liberal. He hangs out with the sinners and tax collectors." My pastor talked about how people are constantly clinging to excuses to not follow Christ. Jesus said, "But wisdom is justified by all of her children." (Luke 7:35) Our pastor talked about, despite all of the excuses we can make or the way we see people failing, the truth is we can see the fruit of the lives of people who are "not offended" by Christ, and who are willing to follow him. His wisdom and leadership leads to blessed and abundant lives, even if for this short time on earth it also means suffering (like John the Baptist). As he prayed for us all before he closed the service, he asked that God would show us where we are trying to put Him into a box, and not allowing Him to truly lead our lives.

Who knows, maybe God's plan is to give us a healthy baby boy like I'm dreaming about. I think the soul searching is the important part. Do I have a yes heart toward God or not?