So That the World May Believe

Sometimes we act as though the God we have were tiny. There is a beautiful song of praise by a Latin worshiper in which, as though God himself were speaking to the listener, God asks, ‘What image will you make of me if you do not know my dimensions?’

The first time I heard that, I remembered the many altars where I myself fitted the gods—which I once worshiped—to the dimensions of a courtyard made by human hands. I never tire of delighting in my Christ and thanking him for what he did for me. Yes, our God has no dimensions; there is no rod or cubit that can measure him. He shattered every mold of the human imagination, and there is no exact measure with which to calculate his fullness. But this concept is not enough; we must work tirelessly so that the world may believe.

The world—which, according to the Hispanic-American Dictionary of Mission, is ‘the sphere of human society that brings together all the operative forces opposed to the will of God’—continues on its unbridled course in open defiance of Christ’s power, majesty, and fullness, and it resists believing. Many people come to churches as though they were administrative offices with direct access to God, looking for a solution to their problems; but when you speak to them about Christ and invite them to reflect on their sin and seek a new, abundant life, they insult you to your face and move on to the next church. Many succeed and manage to solve their material problems from time to time, but they never come to believe; they never come to know Christ and spend their lives making pilgrimages from office to office (from church to church) in search of a God whose dimensions they have already calculated beforehand. Yes, I know as well as you do that the work of conviction of sin is done by the Spirit of God and not by us, that the timing belongs to God, and all those clichés we repeat over and over again; but sometimes these very arguments, which seem ‘so pious and full of spirituality,’ become excuses for not working with God and doing our part.

For the world to believe, each of us must play our part. For the world to believe, we must feel love for the lost and seek them out. God is too great to fit inside a bottle, and we are far too insignificant to try to manipulate him. When Paul arrived in Corinth from Athens, he devoted himself entirely to preaching the word, and one night God told him in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent, for I am with you… and I have many people in this city’ (Acts 18:9–10). Luke says that Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and six months, teaching the word of God.

How should we act so that those operative forces opposed to God may first believe and then seek his blessings? In Cuba, my country, driven by so many needs and shortages (material and spiritual), during the 1990s the church was filled with an incredible multitude of people who came requesting material help; but by the grace of God, they were captivated by the beauty of their love for one another and by Christian solidarity. They believed first, thanks to the diligence and wisdom of pulpits ably occupied by ministers filled with the Holy Spirit; afterward, the Lord took care of adding blessings from above to the converts. The rest—perhaps half—resolved their personal situations but slipped out through the back door, and most of them are still without Christ.

For the world to believe:

• we must be one: ‘The glory that you gave me I have given them, so that they may be one, just as we are one’ (John 17:22),

• we must bear witness that we live in Christ: ‘As you, O Father, are in me, and I in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me’ (John 17:21),

• we must be perfected in unity (John 17:23),

• and above all else, we must bear witness to the love of God (John 17:26).

We must define ourselves as Christians amid the collage (disordered mixture) of trends, sectarianism, false doctrines, and makeshift pulpits afflicting the so-called Protestantism of our time. As long as we fail to do so, we turn God into a dwarf. The new times have given birth to a new kind of ‘Protestant’ who no longer seeks God because he believes he found him long ago, and therefore behaves like an unbeliever and lives on tales of his past glories. A theologian whose name I do not remember said: ‘If what you did yesterday still seems great to you, your growth may have stopped.’ As things stand, many people have remained dwarfs. But you and I have the answer so that the world may believe. Our theological definition must be accompanied by humility and sincere gentleness. The world will come to believe. Our God is far too great. We do not know his dimensions, yet at the same time he is so gracious, so simply sublime, that he decided to dwell in our hearts.

God bless you!

Watch René González’s video: What Image?

Song lyrics (Source: http://www.musica.com/letras.asp?letra=1737330)

What image will you make of me

if you do not know my dimensions?

If you went to the mountains,

you would run out of wood.

What image will you make of me

if you do not know my dimensions?

If you made them out of stone,

you would run out of stones.

My ways are not your ways;

you do not think as I think.

A great mountain separates us:

your ideas and your intentions.

I am the Almighty,

made flesh and suffering.

You will not be able to measure me

by the greatness of my deeds.

CHORUS

You cannot measure me;

I am who I am.

You cannot measure me;

I am eternity.

You cannot measure me

by history.

You cannot measure me

by one more miracle.

Not even all the gold in the world

would be enough for my dimensions.

I am the one who sustains the world

and sustains your life.

What image will you make of me

if you do not know my dimensions?

If the earth trembles because of me

and the darkness vanishes.

What image will you make of me

if you do not know my dimensions?

I am the Alpha and the Omega;

I am the one who gives you life.