While researching for a bible study I was doing, I googled ‘God is creative’ to see what I could find. About six lines down was ‘Pocket God for iPhone.’ I chuckled – imagine God fitting into your pocket! Then I had a vision of a whole host of angels also chuckling at the thought!

And then God spoke. “Seriously, you can’t contain me to your pocket,” he said. “I know,” I replied (still sniggering a little). “You know, but do you really know?” he said.

You know the type of ‘knowing’ I mean? Not just knowing in your head, or even your heart, but letting that knowledge change you, and for your life to be living proof of what you ‘know.’

Flick through the pocket version of the Oxford English dictionary and you’ll find words have been missed out, or explanations aren’t as full as they should be. How can we confine Almighty God to a pocket version? How can we try and contain the one who created the universe to any sort of space or shape at all?

And yet we do. We all do. All the time. We do it because none of us is perfect and none of us completely understand God.

Every time we do something in our own strength, every time we focus on our own circumstances and wonder how we’ll cope, every time we come up with our own solutions before turning to God, or think, even if just for a second, that we know what God needs do to turn our circumstances around and fulfil his plan, we are putting him in our pocket, limiting him to our own ways of thinking.

God isn’t, can’t and won’t be a pocket God. However convenient it might sound to be able to carry God around in your pocket and pull him out whenever you decide you need him, and keep him tucked away for those situations you want to deal with by yourself, that’s not how he works.

We can’t contain God. We can’t put a box around him, and he doesn’t dip in and out depending on how we, or he feels. We cannot even try to imagine how God will work his plan out in our lives, this nation, or the world. And yet so often we despair, or get down about our circumstances. We just can’t see how God will ‘fix’ it. We give him ultimatums, ask him to answer prayers in a particular way, or we try and leave him out completely, often out of fear that his answer might not be the one we want to hear. We let him in to 90% of our lives, but keep that last 10% locked away because of sin, pride or reluctance to give up control…

Let’s lift our eyes up, out of our circumstances, above the state of the nation and the things going on in this world and look to the one whose power, creativity and love know no bounds. He has a plan for you, me, this country and this world. His plan will be realised – no government, recession, country, employer, person, bank statement, or situation will prevent God’s plan from coming about.

It’s exciting!! God is bigger than any of us can imagine. He has plans that are far greater than we could ever come up with! Nothing is beyond him. Nothing is too big or too small for him. He will fulfil his plan in ways we could not possibly dream up or envisage. And this amazing God, for whom nothing is impossible, wants 100% involvement in our lives! Wow!

We may ‘know’ God can’t be contained or limited, but do we really ‘know?’ Does it affect the way we approach our circumstances and respond to the pressures and challenges we face in life? Can others see the difference in our lives?

There are a lot of decisions being made in this country at the moment that will have a big impact on my finances, my job, the organisation I work for, my friends and family… I have not only worried about the impact of these but on at least three occasions just today I have complained. What did those I complained to see? The stress it is causing me at work, my worries about my finances… Did they see my awesome God who knows the plans he has for me, who clothes even the flowers with splendor, who knows exactly how many hairs I have on my head at any given moment in time, who is for me, and loves me so much he sent his only son to die for me so that I could have a relationship with him? If I’m being honest, I doubt it. You see, I ‘know’, but I don’t really ‘know.’ We need to learn how to ‘know’ that God is not a pocket God so that we don’t put him in our pockets – deliberately, unintentionally or sub-consciously. And knowing comes down to spending time with our Creator, immersing ourselves in him and giving him all of ourselves, in every situation.

First written 20th October 2010