Why Your God is Small
No one says it out loud, but the way we live often shouts it louder than words:
Our problems of the week, our shame, our addictions, disappointments, and wounds feel bigger than God.
Or at least, bigger than the version of God we interact with.
If that weren’t true, wouldn’t more of us be experiencing fundamental transformation?
Wouldn’t we see more change, more freedom, more wholeness in the places we so often remain stuck?
I’ve known more people than I can count—including myself—who have carried pain and struggles for years, even while calling on God for help and healing.
Deconstruction Is Often About Disappointment
Many who are deconstructing their faith aren’t rejecting God entirely.
They’re remaking God—reconstructing a version of Him that better fits their lived experience, where the help and the healing just never really materialized.
People aren’t looking for theology and philosophy only.
They’re looking for a God who shows up—in real pain, in real fear, in real life.
Not just in doctrinal statements and creeds.
A Shrinking God in the Age of Reason
A shift happened in the 1600s & 1700s—the rise of Reason and the Scientific Age.
It brought incredible gains in structure, logic, and discovery.
But it also reduced reality to only what could be tested and explained.
Mystery became superstition.
The metaphysical was dismissed.
And slowly, we adopted a rational-only version of God.
Before this, people understood that life was both physical and metaphysical—that some things are real even if they can’t be fully explained.
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis gives this exchange regarding the safety of Aslan:
“Ooh!" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he — quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
We have traded a living, wild, all-consuming God for one that fits neatly into our outlines, sermons, and doctrinal statements.
Church Today: Safe, Predictable, Powerless
Walk into many churches and you’ll find a well-structured God—tidy, clear, organized, and safe. Three points. 60 minutes. Nicely packaged, and you are on your way.
But that God often feels smaller than our lives—smaller than our struggles, our anxiety, our questions, and the life issues we are wrestling with.
Why do we spend 7 hours a day on screens and less than 5 minutes in Scripture?
Not because we’re dumb or undisciplined (although we can be).
But because our small God isn’t meeting us in the places our digital pleasures, hurried schedules, and pursuit of success seem to be, at least for a moment or two.
What Psychology Helps Us See
Modern psychology speaks to our need for something beyond reason.
There is a concept called episodic memory—memories that aren’t just remembered but felt. Moments from our past that are deeply ingrained in our souls, our bodies, and our nervous systems.
These stick not because we’re weak, but because they were emotionally significant.
And we go to a God we can only engage with intellectually, and wonder why our current and past experiences feel stronger than He is.
The problem isn’t that we don’t believe in God. The problem is that we’ve only believed in Him with our minds—and not our hearts, bodies, or emotions.
So we walk around carrying feelings and memories that our intellect alone can’t free us from.
Rational Faith Alone Isn’t Enough
Christianity often resists anything that can’t be fully explained. In our pursuit of clarity and sound doctrine, we’ve sometimes reduced the infinite God to what fits within a system.
I love systems. I love doctrine. I need structure.
But when we reduce God to something we can only understand through reason, we often end up with a God we can control.
God is rational and supra-rational—both understandable and far beyond understanding. And thank God for that.
When we embrace that tension, we open ourselves to encounter God the way He was meant to be met.
This isn’t about mystical extremes or emotionalism—
It’s about the capacity to encounter God in both rational and supra-rational ways,
in ways that move our souls and reshape our lives.
Three Practices to Encounter God
1. Scripture as Living
We often read Scripture like a dictionary—useful, but not alive.
But Scripture is meant to be a place of meeting.
When Jesus said eternal life is found in “knowing” God (John 17:3),
He used a word that means intimate, experiential knowledge—not just belief, but communion.
I don’t always feel something when I read. But I come to Scripture open to presence, not just principles—And it makes all the difference.
2. Music as a Gateway to God
Music is emotional architecture. It bypasses intellect and goes straight to the heart.
It's no wonder musicians wield such cultural power.
Music isn’t just entertainment—it’s one of God’s most powerful tools to stir us, speak to us, and heal us.
If you want to open yourself to a supra-rational encounter with God, start with worship.
3. The Welcoming Prayer
This practice has changed my life more than anything else.
Rather than hiding my emotions from God—fear, anger, shame—
I welcome Him into them.
“Jesus, I welcome You into this fear.
Into this shame.
Into this frustration.
I don’t hide it—I bring it to You.”
It is a simple act of doing the opposite of my “hiding reflex”—and instead, just bringing exactly what is out of sorts in my soul in that moment.
It doesn’t require the right words.
It doesn’t require the cleanest or crispest orthodoxy.
Jesus is so faithful to meet us right where we are when we come to Him, open and honest with our deepest needs.
I have experienced this innumerable times, and it has brought dramatic transformation. I’ve also watched my family and close friends practice this simple posture… and I’ve watched them change before my eyes.
May you begin to experience the God of reason beyond just your intellect—
In every dimension of your soul.
He is a big God, so much more than a principle to study or a story to remember.
He is a living God, and He can be encountered in the most meaningful, personal, and significant areas of our lives.
