Taming God

In The Chronicles of Narnia, a question is asked of Mr. Beaver about Aslan, the lion.

"Is he safe?"

“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.”

The same meek Jesus who held little children and forgave sinners is also called "the Lion of Judah." Many people are uncomfortable with that description because we prefer a tame god. The world wants a god that is "safe," one they can pet and brag about, then set on a shelf when he is inconvenient.

We wrestle with doctrine and theology until our minds are satisfied. We can't rest as long as there are unraveled threads we cannot comprehend. And there are always threads.

So we reinvent Him. The Lion of Judah is reduced to a tabby cat.

The Bible calls this apostasy. When men cannot fathom Jehovah and his ways, they give up and make him into their own image. They tame him.

Are you guilty of it?

• Do you ever feel the need to apologize for God?

(All that messy business in the Old Testament. Maybe God was a bit uncivilized back then, but He has learned from his mistakes.)

• Do you skip passages that make you uncomfortable and don't mesh with your adopted doctrinal statement?
  

("But we like our church this way!")

• Do you harbor pet sins, assuring yourself that God understands and knows you're "working on it?"

(Why do we assume that a holy God who hates the sin that murdered his Son will overlook ours?)

Unless we are willing to hear the mighty roar of a righteous God, unless we are willing to entrust ourselves to those claws that could tear us apart if they chose to, unless we are willing to face Him as the Lion of Judah we can never truly know Him as the Lamb of God. That tabby cat you're worshiping has no power to save you from anything.

Is God tame? Is he comprehensible? Is He safe?

"No. But He's very good. He's the King, I tell you."