How big is your God?

Some people have a little God. I don’t mean by this whether or not all the various ideas of God or all those who claim they worship God are really God. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” What I mean is whether your God is able to handle the various difficulties that you face?

We’ve been working through Ecclesiastes, that book where Solomon declares all things are vanity. By this he means ‘a vapor’ or ‘meaningless’ when looked at from the perspective of eternity. Life is short, but eternity is forever. In chapter 4, Solomon continues his search. This time, he is looking for what is better. He knows that this side of glory, he cannot have what is best.

The opening verses of Ecclesiastes 4 are hard words, but necessary. He speaks about oppression and, what’s worse, oppression without comfort. It’s one thing to suffer in this life, but to do alone is oftentimes unbearable. This leads him to speak in a very uncomfortable way. He says, “I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive.” His words are striking, and we wonder how someone with faith can utter them.

I suppose we could interpret them the way we see this kind of thing in Isaiah 57. There God says, “The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness.” Here the reminder is that death is not the end, but the beginning of eternity. This has always been the hope of God’s people. It is also a good reminder to those who reject God, for Isaiah ends his words with “There is no peace for the wicked.”

I don’t think that’s what Solomon is talking about though. It is true that this life is not all that there is. But he seems to be saying something else. I would argue that his words confront us with the question: how big is your God? Some Christians have a very small God. He is there for joy and prosperity but absent in the midst of suffering. For some Christians, God is all about making sure they get whatever they want – not just what they need – like a genie in a bottle who is at their beck and call.

The God of the Bible is too big to be at our command. But he is also too big for anything we face to be outside of his sovereign care. This is both a comforting and hard truth. Have you ever struggled so hard that you didn’t think you would make it? Have you ever wondered if the world would be better off without you? Have you known people who are in a difficult place, and it just doesn’t seem to be getting better for them? We all know people like this. Maybe you are one of them. Solomon’s words remind us that God is big enough for our struggles.

This of course is the whole purpose of Jesus’ incarnation. We’re not far off from hearing Christmas hymns in the stores, humming about the Son of God being born of a virgin. He left eternal glory and was born into a time of strife and difficult circumstances. Not only is our God big enough for our experiences to not put us out of his reach, but he entered into our suffering in order to deliver us.

The answer to those days where we face ongoing discouragement is not to pull away from God because he can’t seem to fix our lives. No, the answer is to draw near to God because he has entered into our weakness. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16) This brings us back to Solomon’s problem: there was no one to comfort. In Christ, we have comfort because he has given us the Spirit of comfort and he has given us other believers to help us when we struggle.

Pastor Everett Henes, the pastor of the Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, can be reached at pastorhenes@gmail.com.