I became a Christian when I was 12 years old. I didn't really think much about what God was like at that time. Yeah, I knew He was loving and powerful and eternal, but I didn't focus much on who He really was and what He was like. As I grew up in the church and as God got more and more important to me I began to seek out who this God I had given my life to really was. I have spend a lot of time in the Bible and since it has been almost 48 years since I became a Christian, I have found one huge misconception I had about God. That misconception was that God was safe. God is not safe. In the C.S. Lewis book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy asks Mr. Beaver about Alsan. Lucy wonders if Alsan is a man, and when told that he's a great lion, Lucy worries about meeting him. She asks Mr. Beaver if Alsan is safe. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good." I can total agree with that statement that God is not safe, but He is good. The God have come to know through His Word and through experiecing a daily relationship with is not in any sense safe. I believe a better description of God is wild and untamed.
Why do I say that God is wild and untamed? There are five descriptions of God that indicate that He is wild and untamed not a bit safe.
Right after God had delivered the people of Israel from Pharaoh and his army by parting the Red sea and letting the Israelites go through on dry ground and then destroying the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, Moses and Miriam sing a song of praise to God. In Exodus 15:3 they sang, "The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name." God is a warrior. I know this isn't the usually picture of God we hear in the church, but there it is. Moses experieced God as a warrior who fought for His people. Four times in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy we are told that God fights for us as His people. In 2 Chronicles 20:15 King Jehoshaphat is told that his enemy will not win the batttle because the battle is not his but God's. This indicates that God will fight for His people and defeat the enemy. A warrior is not a safe person. A warrior is a wild person.
In Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29 we are told that God is a consuming fire. Fire is never safe. Even when fire is used to warm our bodies or cook our food it is not safe. Living in New Mexico I have seen the Forrest Service do controlled burns that got out of control and destroyed property and homes. God as a consuming fire is not safe.
Exodus 34:14 says, "Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Jealousy is not safe. I have seen jealousy turn a mild mannered, lay back person into a intensely obsessed person who would do anything to get what they wanted. I know that jealously is not seen as a good trait in people. God being a jealous God means that He who created us and redemmed us wants us for Himself. The fact that God is jealous means that He loves us passionately and would do whatever it took to establish a relationship with us like sending His Son to die for our sins on the cross.
In Pslam 18:47 and 94:1 God is described as the God who avenges me. I remember one time a bully was picking on a friend of mine who could not really defend himself. Another friend and I went and took care of the bully and we were not controlled in how we did it. A person who is out to avenge a wrong can be very intense. God is intense as He avenges the wrongs done against His people.
Pslam 140:7 says, "O Sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer, who shields my head in the day of battle." God is my deliverer. He will rescue me from the enemy, Satan. God will not be safe when He comes to defeat the enemy, He will be focused on getting me out of the enemy's control. He will be wild.
I have to come to know and experience a God who is strong, passionate, wild, and untamed. He is not safe and nice. He is good. He is a God who will Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls of my life and guide me into unsafe but awesomely good places.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
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