Isaiah 55:9
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
When a person considers God, they can't help but do so from their own frame of reference. This means, among other things, that the person comprehends God in terms of what they understand, what fundamentally confines and structures their own existence. And so, they speak of God, the Creator, by reference to his Creation. Recognizing our finite, contingent vantage point, the Bible offers to us many metaphors and similes concerning God's nature: He is a "consuming fire" (Exodus 24:7; Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29); He is like a "hen gathering her chicks under her wings" (Matthew 23:37); the Spirit came upon the first born-again disciples "like a mighty rushing wind" (Acts 2:2); God is like a Potter making pots of clay (Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:1-5; Romans 9:21), and so on. Though God is not what He has made, something of God's nature can be seen in what He has made. We mustn't forget, however, that the Potter is not a pot.
When talking of God, metaphor, simile, and analogy fly thick and fast and, sometimes, this leads to dangerous contortions of God's nature. We always necessarily diminish God when we speak of Him through reference to what He has made. If, for example, we say God is like the crashing waves of the sea, powerful, constant and irresistible, we have immediately and severely reduced God, narrowing the focus of our attention to those aspects of who He is weakly reflected in the nature of the waves of the ocean He has made. In reality, God's power outstrips anything all the oceans of the world gathered together in a single, towering wave could manifest. Every molecule of such a wave exists - and continues to exist - by the will of the Creator who, simultaneously, is also sustaining countless quadrillions of planets and galaxies, staggeringly huge black holes devouring millions of light years of space, and burning stars nearly the size of our entire solar system!
As this diminishment of God occurs, false notions of Him creep in. "God is too busy to bother with my insignificant problems," we say, as though, occupied with bigger matters, God is too tied-up to see to our situation. This may be the case often with you and I, but God is not us, limited in His powers, having to focus upon one thing at a time, prioritizing His finite attention and energies, "big things" taking precedence over small ones. No, He has all the hairs of our heads numbered (Matthew 10:30). Why would a "busy" God bother? Because knowing these sorts of details doesn't diminish God's perfect, infinite capacities in the slightest. God can attend to the smallest detail of our lives and direct the galaxy-eating activities of all the black holes in the universe at the same time and remain entirely untaxed. Being infinite, God, you see, never gets busy, or tired, or distracted.
Sometimes, people reduce God by thinking of Him as an amorphous, impersonal energy, a vague, cosmic "consciousness," subtly directing the events of the universe in accord with some principle of order and balance, uniting us all in itself, slowly but surely revealing that we are all just extensions and expression of itself. But this is just a more esoteric conflation of the Potter with his pots. God, Scripture reveals, is outside of, transcendent to, His Creation, as a painter is outside of the painting he paints, or a sculptor is external to his sculpture, or a musician is separate from the music he plays. Worse, this conflation not only diminishes God, but encourages us to think of ourselves as fundamentally equal with God, divine. We are not "divine energy," however, but mere effects of the work of the Creator, "pots" He has made, different in nature from Him as the musical score on a sheet of paper is different from the musician who plays that score on a violin or piano - far more so, actually.
Finally, people can warp and lessen God in the area of His human-like characteristics - maleness, jealousy, anger, laughter, having hands, changing His mind, etc. Encountering verses and passages that speak of these things, there is often the unconscious assumption that God possesses/expresses these things for the same reasons, and in the same way, that humans do. People anthropomorphize God, like Disney does with brooms, teapots, animals and automobiles, assigning human motives and behavior to Him as though He was essentially just like His creatures. As a result, God is lowered to our level and, like us, becomes petty, capricious, vicious and dark. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth, as Isaiah indicated in the verse at the top of this post.
Be careful, then, how you "see" God. Nothing is more vital, more crucial, to your walk with Him and to your understanding of Reality itself - of which God is the fundamental Ground - than a correct, biblical view of God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. If you get it wrong about God, you get it wrong about the very root-nature of existence and Truth, which has led to some of the very worst atrocities of human history: deep perversion (temple orgies, pedophilia, inappropriate behavior with animals) savage cruelty (slavery, female genital mutilation, honor killing, cannibalism, infanticide), human sacrifice (to Molech, Aztec gods, etc.) and war. No one can afford distortions about who and what God is.
Zechariah 10:2
2 For the household gods utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; they tell false dreams and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd.
Psalms 115:2-11
2 Why should the nations say, "Where, now, is their God?"
3 But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.
4 Their idols are silver and gold, The work of man's hands.
5 They have mouths, but they cannot speak; They have eyes, but they cannot see;
6 They have ears, but they cannot hear; They have noses, but they cannot smell;
7 They have hands, but they cannot feel; They have feet, but they cannot walk; They cannot make a sound with their throat.
8 Those who make them will become like them, Everyone who trusts in them.
9 O Israel, trust in the LORD; He is their help and their shield.
10 O house of Aaron, trust in the LORD; He is their help and their shield.
11 You who fear the LORD, trust in the LORD; He is their help and their shield.
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