God gets Bigger

I don't know how often you have moved in your life, but my guess is, not many have moved as often as I have. New York, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Florida and now Indiana have all been home to me. I was born and spent the first five years of my life in Rochester, NY. We lived in a couple of different homes, but the only one I really remember had a huge hill out back. Actually, the hill was really only a small bump, but when I was a kid, it seemed huge. I would ride my bigwheel down it and play army on it with my cousins. I remember, it was huge. Then I went back six or seven years ago and it's almost flat! It's funny, as you get older, things seem smaller. Hometowns get smaller. Hills get smaller. The world seems to get smaller. But one thing doesn't - God. If anything, the older I get, the bigger God seems.

This was brought home to me the other night as I was reading CS Lewis' classic Prince Caspian, a part of the Narnia Trilogy. Lucy, a little girl who became a queen in Narnia, has been out of Narnia for sometime. Suddenly, she and her siblings find themselves back in the magical land of Narnia. After a few nights of wandering and wondering, Lucy, the youngest, meets Aslan again (in the books, Aslan is the Christ figure). Lucy runs to Aslan and gives him a huge hug.

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."

"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

I love that exchange. As we grow in Christ, he doesn't get smaller and tamer, but bigger and more untamed. The more we grow, the more we realize he doesn't fit into our systems and the more we realize our finite minds cannot fully comprehend his infinitude. The older we get in Christ, the more mature, the more we see mystery. It is just the opposite of how things normally work. We so quickly loose our sense of awe and wonder, our sense of bigness. But when we are growing in Christ, we realize how far we are from knowing him fully, how many untapped thoughts there are to have still, how many questions unsolved. He seems bigger. I look forward to seeing how big he will be next year. 10 years. 40 years from now!