Bigger and Bigger

My first Bible feels smaller—so much smaller—today than I remember it being. My many adult-sized editions of the same book are stuffed to the brim with notes and maps and study helps, and most barely fit in the crook of my elbow much less in the palm of my hand. This one, by contrast, is minuscule.

So many souvenirs from the past seem to grow smaller with the years, all out of proportion to the woman I am today. But the God of my yesterdays never shrinks. He grows bigger and bigger with each passing year.

Once upon a time He was small enough to squeeze into my eight-year-old heart. Today I know that nothing can contain Him. Way back when I discovered He could be trusted with smallish disappointments and middle-sized fears; today I know He reconstitutes great big broken hearts and there is no threat from within or without that can make Him tremble.

I used to say when people asked to hear my faith story that I met my Savior young and then grew up with Him. But now I see that while I was growing up with Him, He was already beyond me at every turn.

What a relief that God does not shrink as I grow older. Like Lucy in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia tales, year by year I find Him bigger. Bigger than floods and freezes and sorrow and sickness. Bigger than broken promises and bruised hearts. Bigger even than my own sin and selfishness. Hymn writer Frederick Faber saw it so in "The Eternal Spirit":

Ocean, wide-flowing Ocean, Thou, of uncreated love;

I tremble as within my soul I feel Thy waters move.

Thou art a sea without a shore; awful, immense, Thou art;

A sea which can contract itself within my narrow heart.

Time may play tricks on my perspective or make my memory a flimsy scrim, but my God just keeps growing bigger. I'll never outpace Him or outgrow his love for me, and He'll never prove smaller than I remember. That He is always bigger is a sure and certain mercy to me, and a solid joy forever!

Mighty God! Far beyond our reach! Unsurpassable in power and justice! It's unthinkable that he'd treat anyone unfairly. So bow to him in deep reverence one and all! If you are wise, you'll most certainly worship him.

Job 37: 32-34, The Message