Sitting in the back seat on the way home from church, little Charlie wasn’t his normal, chatty self. Mom and dad could tell that something
“Charlie honey, what did you learn in Sunday school today?”
“We learned about Jesus again,” he said with a little sigh.
“Anything in particular about Jesus?”
“Yeah,” he went on, “As usual, Ms. Graham kept talking about how Jesus can live inside of us and how important it is that we invite him into our hearts.”
“And what do you think about that? We’ve talked about that lots before too.”
“I dunno, I guess I kinda get it, but I’m a little confused by it too. In my
“I’m sorry honey, I don’t know what you mean…” mom said a bit confused.
“Well, Jesus is a grown up, right?”
“Yes,” said mom with some hesitation, wondering where this was going.
“If Jesus is a grown up, then how can he fit inside of my heart? If Jesus lives in my heart, won’t he stick out?”
With a big smile on her face, and after a short pause, mom responded, “Yes, honey! He most certainly will stick out if he lives in your heart. He sticks out so much that everyone can see that he lives inside of you!”
God is too big to fit inside of us. In particular, He’s too big to fit in our heads. Jesus called the Holy Spirit the “Helper” (John 14:26). The reality is that we can’t understand God, including the Holy Spirit, without the Holy Spirit’s help. We need the Holy Spirit’s help to both illuminate our minds and calibrate our hearts to understand Him, to relate to Him, to know Him.
That God is so big that He can’t fit in our heads is a part of the wonder and mystery of God. This is why being a Christian and thinking “Christianly” requires childlike faith. We have to be willing to come to a place where we can be perfectly comfortable saying, “I don’t know how it’s true, but I know that it’s true.” We have to come to grips with the simple, but world-shaping reality that we are not God. As Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3–4)
