Is He Safe?

Author Shane Claiborne says this in his book "Red Letter Revolution":

God cannot be held hostage. God is bigger than our images, icons, and temples. God doesn't need mediators and isn't confined to the Holy of Holies. God is alive in the world, and is in the streets. God can heal people with dirt and spit. God can fry fish. God is with us. No longer do we have to go to temples to find God, God has come and found us -- in Jesus.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but Jesus is not a god who can be contained. He is a god who camps on beaches instead of sleeps on feather mattresses. A god who washes feet. A god who hugs children, heals women from physical and emotional illnesses, holds his friends to higher standards of behavior while lavishing grace on the broken. He is the one who sees and loves those who live on the margins of life. A god who calls us down from the trees to come and eat with Him, even though we don't deserve a moment in His presence.

He is a god who continuously shatters our preconceived ideas, who challenges our way of thinking, who is feisty, funny, clever, and at times gruff. He is human as well as holy.

Jesus will meet you in your office cubicle, your bedroom, the streets. He is not restrained, limited to church. He does not call you to perfection -- He does not see you as anything other than fully, and wholly who you are, right now in this moment. He is bigger and more wild than we could ever, ever imagine. He cannot be boxed in, He doesn't conform, doesn't fit the mold.

I am reminded of a scene from The Chronicles of Narnia where Mr. Beaver is explaining who Aslan is to the children:

“Aslan is a lion -- the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

Our God is not safe, but He is good, I tell you. He is good.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. -1 John 4:16