Breaking the Box: Discovering How Big God Really Is

There's a dangerous habit many believers fall into without even realizing it. We start building a box—not with wood or nails, but with fear, doubt, unmet expectations, and the illusion of control. Inside this box, we place God, shrinking Him down to a size we can comprehend, predict, and manage. And in doing so, we limit not only what God can do in our lives, but who we become in the process.

The truth is simple yet profound: God is big. Bigger than our circumstances, bigger than our government, bigger than any lack we see, and certainly bigger than the boxes we try to confine Him in.

The Box We Build

When did you start lowering your expectations of God?

Maybe it was after a prayer that seemed to go unanswered. Perhaps it was during a season when God didn't fix something the way you thought He should. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, lies begin to take root: Maybe God overlooks me. Maybe He forgot about me. Maybe miracles only happen for people with fewer problems than I have.

We tell ourselves we're being "realistic," but really, we're just protecting ourselves from potential disappointment. We begin to predict failure rather than expect breakthrough. Our prayers shrink from "God, use me to change the world" to "God, just help me get through this week without falling apart."

Remember when you first encountered Jesus? Your faith was bold, your prayers were audacious, and your expectations were sky-high. What happened? Life happened. Disappointment happened. And bit by bit, we reduced God to the size of our fear rather than expanding our faith to the size of our God.

If you put God in a box, that box becomes the one you live in.

God Will Offend Your Theology to Reveal His Heart

Here's an uncomfortable truth: God will offend your theology to reveal His heart.

Throughout Scripture, every time God moved, it was in the least expected way. He chose a stutterer to confront Pharaoh. He picked a teenage girl to carry the Messiah. He used fishermen to turn the world upside down.

We need to be careful not to pack God into our theological frameworks so tightly that we miss what He's actually doing. When John the Baptist—one of Jesus' own disciples—sent word from prison asking, "Are you really the one?" Jesus didn't offer explanations or justifications. He simply said, "Tell John: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the dead are raised."

Translation? "I came to do what I came to do, even if it's not what you expect."

The Pharisees constantly told Jesus, "I don't think You should be doing that." And Jesus essentially responded, "I don't care. I'm breaking the box. Don't tell Me what I'm going to do. I'm God."

If we always expect God to meet our expectations, we'll never grow beyond them. Perhaps the reason we're not receiving what we expect from God is that He's not getting what He expects from us—obedience.

God Is Big Enough to Be Misunderstood

Isaiah 55:8-9 reminds us: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Our lack of understanding does not equate to God's lack of presence.

You will never fully understand God. Stop trying to. If you could figure Him out completely, you wouldn't need to worship Him. Worship is trusting even when you don't see. That's faith.

In the book of Habakkuk, when the prophet questioned God about all the evil in the world, God didn't offer a detailed explanation. Instead, He said, "A work is being done that you wouldn't understand if I told you." Then He added this powerful statement: "The righteous will live by faith."

Mystery isn't opposition to faith—it's the ecosystem where faith grows. We depend on countless things in life that we don't fully understand. Wi-Fi. Microwaves. The engine in our car. Yet we trust them. How much more should we trust the Ancient of Days?

The devil isn't really concerned with whether you go to church. When you go to church, you're learning a fraction of what the devil already knows. You become a threat when you submit to God, trust Him, and activate your faith. Churchgoers aren't a threat, but people who trust God—watch out.

God Will Break Your Image of Him to Give You Intimacy with Him

God doesn't want to be a genie, a mascot, or a distant figure in heaven. He wants a relationship with you. And sometimes that requires us to be broken—not because God is mean, but because we're often so stubborn that we only hear His voice when we have no other options.

In Luke 24, two disciples walked home on the road to Emmaus after Jesus' crucifixion. Their hope had died with Him. Jesus Himself walked alongside them, but they didn't recognize Him because He didn't come in the form they expected. They anticipated a conquering king with a crown and an army. Instead, Jesus simply walked with them.

God is not absent. He is unrecognized.

For many going through brokenness or difficult times, God isn't missing. We just don't recognize Him because He shows up in places we least expect—in failure, in the mundane, in situations we wouldn't even call holy.

When did those disciples finally recognize Jesus? When He broke the bread. That breaking was the moment of revelation. Sometimes God has to break us so we can see Him for who He really is.

God Does Not Need to Change to Be Good

Hebrews 13:8 declares, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Malachi 3:6 adds, "For I, the Lord, do not change."

We've heard this countless times, but do we live like it's true? God does not adjust His character based on our circumstances or expectations. He was good before the miracle. He's good when a miracle happens. And He's good if it doesn't happen.

You might not get your miracle in this life. Trust God anyway.

Our pain, doubt, fear, and unmet expectations warp our perception of God like a circus mirror distorts our reflection. But a warped reflection doesn't change reality. Whatever we're going through does not rewrite the reality of who God is.

Revelation Replaces Assumption

Job, after everything he endured, made this profound statement: "I heard about you before, but now I've seen you."

That's what God wants—for us to see Him for who He truly is. Our revelation begins where assumption dies. God isn't a puzzle to be figured out; He's a Father to be known.

Some of us have been faithful to church but distant from God because we fell in love with an idea of Him instead of the reality of who He is. Some are angry at a version of God that doesn't even exist—a God who hurt them or forgot them.

God is not fragile. He can handle our pain, our questions, our doubt. But we must bring them to Him. In our wrestling, in our honest crying out, we often find the peace that surpasses understanding—not because we comprehend everything, but because we encounter His presence.

Worship Like He's Here—Because He Is

This is a call to break the box. To stop worshiping God like He's small, distant, or unreachable. To raise our worship to the level of who we know God is.

God sits on the throne—not just in some distant heaven, but in the sanctuary of our hearts, in our gatherings, in our everyday lives. Where two or three are gathered, Jesus is in the midst.

With everything going crazy in the world, now is the time to declare: "God, I trust You." Not because we understand everything, but because we know Him. And knowing Him changes everything.

Remove the scales from your eyes. Tear down the walls. Take God out of the box where He never belonged in the first place.

God is big. Act like it. Pray like it. Worship like it. Live like it.