God has an annoying habit of refusing to behave the way we think He should.

Perhaps I should phrase that more reverently.

But I’m not sure it would be more accurate.

We pray.

We ask.

We wait.

Sometimes we bargain.

Sometimes we make promises.

Sometimes we explain to God, with what I’m sure we imagine is impeccable logic, exactly why the thing we’re asking Him to do would be a very good idea.

Occasionally, we even support our recommendation with Scripture.

Surely God appreciates our thoroughness.

And yet He remains stubbornly unwilling to surrender control of the universe to us.

I’ve been thinking about that lately.

Because although we probably wouldn’t use words like manipulate, coerce or control to describe our relationship with God, I wonder how often some version of those impulses sneaks into our faith.

If I pray the right prayer…

If I have enough faith…

If I do the right things…

If I find the right Bible verse…

If I can just understand how God works…

…then perhaps I can get the outcome I’m looking for.

But God refuses to become a formula.

He won’t be reduced to a transaction.

He doesn’t fit neatly inside our theology, our expectations, or our plans.

Why?

Because He is God.

And we are not.

The God We Cannot Control

This really shouldn’t surprise us.

The Bible is filled with people who thought they understood what God was doing—until He did something completely different.

Abraham and Sarah were going to have a child in their old age.

Joseph’s path toward God’s promise led first into a pit, slavery, and prison.

Moses, a fugitive shepherd, was going to confront Pharaoh.

Gideon was going to defeat an army after God dramatically reduced the size of his own.

David, the youngest son who wasn’t even initially invited to meet Samuel, was going to become king.

The Messiah was going to arrive as a baby.

He was going to be born in a stable.

He was going to associate with sinners.

He was going to wash His disciples’ feet.

He was going to conquer through surrender.

And the cross—the instrument that looked like the ultimate defeat—was going to become the means through which God offered salvation to the world.

Apparently, God has never felt particularly obligated to meet human expectations.

And perhaps that’s a very good thing.

Because our expectations are so small.

We see a tiny sliver of the story.

God sees the whole thing.

We know what we want today.

God knows what we need for eternity.

We ask Him to fit into our plans.

Meanwhile, He is inviting us into His.

That’s the God I would expect to be beyond my understanding.

But this week, I’ve been thinking about another way God defies my expectations.

And somehow, this one feels even more astonishing.

How Could a God Like That Know Me?

Think for a moment about the God we’re talking about.

The God who created galaxies.

The God who spoke light into existence.

The God who exists outside the boundaries of time.

Holy.

Omnipotent.

Omniscient.

Eternal.

The God whose greatness is so far beyond human comprehension that even those words seem inadequate.

I can understand why a God like that would be difficult for me to comprehend.

What I have a harder time comprehending is this:

Why would a God like that concern Himself with me?

Not humanity in general.

Not the church collectively.

Not billions of people viewed from some divine distance.

Me.

One person.

One life.

One set of fears and hopes and failures and prayers.

And yet Scripture tells me that the God who cannot be contained by the universe somehow deals with us as individual children.

He knows us.

He sees us.

He hears us.

He calls us by name.

He loves us.

Each one of us.

That may be one of the most unexpected things about God.
The God who is infinitely above me chooses to come astonishingly close.

When “The World” Includes Me

I felt as though God reminded me of that this week in a very simple way.

Most of us are accustomed to reading the great promises and declarations of Scripture in their universal sense.

And rightly so.

John 3:16, for example, says:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
—John 3:16 (NIV)

That’s the gospel.

God loved the world.

But this week, I felt prompted to hear those words another way.

Not to change Scripture.

Not to pretend the verse says something it doesn’t.

But to recognize that if I am part of the world God loves—and if I am one of the whoever who believes—then this enormous universal truth is also profoundly personal.

So I tried saying it this way:

For God so loved me that He gave His one and only Son, that because I believe in Him, I shall not perish but have eternal life.

That hits differently.

The theology hasn’t changed.

The recipient has come into focus.

God loved (and loves) me.

God gave His Son for me.

God offers eternal life to me.

Those aren’t merely statements about humanity.

They are true about me.

And if you belong to Christ, they are true about you, too.

While I Was Still a Sinner

Then I thought about another verse.

Paul writes:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
—Romans 5:8 (NIV)

Again, we naturally read it collectively.

Us.

And that’s exactly what Paul wrote.

But us is made up of individual people.

Including me.

So I said it to myself this way:

But God demonstrates His own love for me in this: While I was still a sinner, Christ died for me.

I don’t know why that felt so different this week.

I’ve known the verse for years.

I’ve believed its theology for decades.

I know Christ died for my sins.

But there is something powerful about removing the comfortable distance created by the plural pronouns.

While I was still a sinner…

Christ died for me.

Not once I had improved myself.

Not once I had become worthy.

Not once I had figured everything out.

Not once I had demonstrated that I deserved His attention.

While I was still separated from Him by my sin, God acted.

For me.

That’s difficult to comprehend.

Actually, I think it’s impossible to comprehend fully.

And perhaps that’s the point.

The Unexpected God

There are plenty of things about God I don’t understand.

There are prayers He hasn’t answered the way I expected.

There are things He has allowed that I wouldn’t have chosen.

There are times when I’ve wanted Him to move faster.

Times when I’ve wanted Him to explain Himself.

Times when I’ve probably tried, without admitting it even to myself, to persuade God to follow my plan.

But He remains God.

I remain me.

And I’m increasingly grateful for both of those things.

Because if God were limited to my expectations of Him, what kind of God would He be?

He would be no wiser than I am.

No more imaginative than I am.

No more capable of seeing the future than I am.

His plans would be limited by my plans.

His goodness would be constrained by my understanding of goodness.

His love would be limited by my ability to comprehend love—and by my own limited capacity to love.

What a tragically small God that would be.

Instead, we have the unexpected God.

The God who does things we never would have imagined.

The God who chooses the unlikely.

The God who brings strength out of weakness.

The God who brings life out of death.

The God who refuses to be controlled by His creation.

And—perhaps most astonishingly—the God who knows every one of His children personally.

Including me.

Bigger Than I Imagine. Closer Than I Expect.

Maybe that’s the paradox I want to hold onto.

God is infinitely greater than I imagine.
And He is infinitely more personal than I expect.

I cannot control Him.

But I can trust Him.

I cannot manipulate Him.

But I can talk to Him.

I cannot fully understand Him.

But I can know Him.

I cannot make Him love me.

But I don’t have to.

He already does.

“For God so loved the world…”

Yes.

Absolutely.

Never make that verse smaller than it is.

God loves the world.

But don’t make it less personal than it is, either.

You are part of that world.

So am I.

And this week, perhaps it would be worth speaking these truths aloud:

God loves me.

Christ died for me.

God sees me.

God knows me.

God hears me.

Not because I somehow became important enough to attract the attention of the Almighty.

But because, in another mystery I will probably never completely understand, that’s the kind of God He has chosen to be.

The unexpected God.

And I’m very glad He hasn’t limited Himself to my small and unimaginative ideas about who He should be.