Your God is too Safe.
Rediscovering the Wonder
of a God You Can't Control.

These first words intrigued me when I first saw them in a Barnes & Nobles in Georgia. They were the title of a book by Mark Buchanan, a book that has acted like a fire to show me where I was hesitating in my faith. It showed me that when I thought of my God, he was safe. Too Safe.

In the book, "The Lion, The Wich, and The Wardrobe," four children journey to the allegorical land of Narnia through a great and magical Wardrobe. The King of this land is a majestic lion named Aslan, but a White Wich has taken the land of Narnia, and put in under a spell that makes the land always Winter, and never Christmas!

Mark Buchanan uses this illistration on pg. 31-32 of "Your God is Too Safe."

Is C.S. Lewis's most famous Narnia chronicle, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the children -- Peter, Susan, Lucy, and Edmund -- enter Narnia through a wardrobe in their uncle's home. Edmund has already given allegiance to the witch and sneaks off to join ranks with her. The other three children go to the house of the Beavers, a wary but hospitable pair, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver tell the children that they will take them to see the King, Aslan.

"Is - is he a man?" asked Lucy
"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion."
"Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie, abd make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king I tell you."

Safe? Don't you hear what I'm saying? Who said anything about safe? 'Course He's not safe.
But He's good.

'Course He's not Safe! But He's Good.

This is your God.

God is a consuming Fire! His word is a Hammer that breaks the pebbles, rocks, and mountains in two. The hills themselves melt before Him. But He's Good! Deamons know Him and Tremble! We often either see God as a happy and doting old uncle or as a Tyrant, bent on damning us to eternity in Hell. That's not God.

"Neither the safe god not the belligerant god are the real God. The God who truly is, who seeks you and me, who desires our holiness, is far more loving and comforting than the safe god. And the true God is more fierce and fearsome than the bullying and petulant god of our imaginations."
-Your God is Too Safe, pg. 33

God isn't safe. Neither is He weak. Neither is he teetering on the edge of a tantrum, just waiting to smite us with fire from the heavens. Neither is He willing to let us just go on living. He loved Jonah enough to send a sea monster after his to get him to Ninevah. He loved Daniel enough to let him be a witness in a den of hungry lions. He loved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego enough to visit them and give them comfort. But first they had to be in a fire so hot that the guards who through them in died from the heat.

The One True God is not the god of close parking spaces or the god of sunny days for our beach trip. He's the God of the cross, the God of the weak and the broken, who makes them strong. He's the God of Love, the God of Pain, the God of Suffering, and the God of Recompense. He's the God of Forgiveness, and the God of Vengance, He's the God of the Shepard, and the God of the King. He's God of the Rich and the Poor, the Hungry and the Full. He is God. He is not Safe.

But He's Good.

Your God is Too Safe
Rediscover the Wonder of a God You Can't Control

Meet Aslan, who is not a tame lion, but the Great Lion. Meet Jesus, who is not a safe god of puny people, but the God of those who are DIE DAILY, and have been REBORN and REMADE not as how they were before, but as those who are More Than Conquerors.

This study will be taken from Mark Buchanan's book, Your God is Too Safe.

Please, come with me, as I rediscover the Wonder of God, whom I cannot control.
-David Douglas Tate Shore