When your God is too Small

Psalm 78 "How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. They remembered not his hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy."(v.40-42)

In Psalm 78, the people were encouraged to remain dedicated to God as he had delivered and remained with them faithfully. During the reading, the parents in attendance were instructed to share the story of God's deliverance with their children even as they were taught. They would teach their family about the miraculous acts of God throughout Israel’s history to redeem his people despite their unfaithfulness. The psalmist reminded the people of God’s mercy in spite of the stubbornness and disobedience of past generations from the beginning, and how the future of Israel depended on honoring God as his people. The psalmist shared how God was constantly challenged by the Israel even while they were being delivered from the hands of their enemies. Even though God provided water in the desert, food from heaven, and guidance by day and night, Israel often complained and became obstacles to blessings from God. As in the words of our passage, “Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel”.The word “limited” is the same as ‘making a mark’, like drawing a boundary that separates plots of land. When you consider the ways in which God intervened and displayed his miraculous power for his people, it seems so contradictory that it was God’s people who had limited his power and not the enemy. It makes one wonder, if Israel had not desired prescribed answers to their concerns from God, how much more would God have provided for them? How many trials and struggles could they have avoided? How much blessing as a people did they deny for themselves by restricting God? What about us? How often in our despair, do we prescribe the way we want God to provide for us without considering what greater blessing he would otherwise provide for us? In our own way, we often limit what God can do because we do not see him as GOD. The God we hold in our own mind is often too small. Imagine what would be possible if we did not restrain God by what we want through our own limited expectations? May we learn to trust God in how his ways can exceed what we desire. Have a wonderful day, my friends.