#1 you are the sum

Have you ever had someome in church give their personal story and say something like this: "God is just everything to me!" And then they slightly close their eyes and tilt their head up in a peaceful, satisfied pose...all the while you're wondering: "what are you talking about? I know that's a beautiful thought and common religious sentiment, but c'mon. Are you saying God is my...my...uh...shoe?" Surely not.

Let's not think literally here. (If we do, the eggheads out there will call this pantheism and I will get some very long, 'thoughtful' comments.) Psalm 24:1 and 89:11 are a couple of places that remind us everything belongs to God. He created it and it's his. Check. But then how can God be "everything" to someone?

Do you remember when you were a little kid and Christmas was coming up and all you could think about was one gift that you hoped you'd get? Ok, maybe it was last week that you were feeling this way, and maybe you're also a grown adult. I, along with all of America who was dissatisfied with other TV programming, just recently saw A Christmas Story during TBS's 24 hour back-to-back Christmas Eve showing. Very funny. Without getting too sidetracked here, do you remember the scene where Ralphie is at the breakfast table and is thinking of how to slide a clue to his mom and dad that he wanted "an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle?" Remember? Have you ever wanted something so badly that it occupied your thoughts during the day, your dreams at night, and your time spent online reading and researching?

What if we wanted God like that? Here's an even stranger thought: What if there existed a product out there that was truly perfect in every way? Would we want (uh, more like demand) it?

Many times those products we see on TV and in the store or in our friends houses get picked apart. I mean, we're glued to reviews of our favorite products. My dad is someone I consider very addicted to the magazine Consumer Reports. However, I look at blogs like Gizmodo and PC World and several customer reviews online before I purchase something too (even if it's 99 cents to download an app for my phone!) We consumers are all tallying up positives and negatives. Setting a score. Adding and subtracting. And we find that these products, like us, aren't perfect.

It's no wonder we apply the same arithmetic to God. We pick apart the things we like, the Christians who make positive or negative impacts on our lives, try to add and subtract what we do and don't like about God and his followers...seeing through our smudgy mosaic lens of religion to view God. Why can't we shatter the homemade warped glass and just see God for everything HE is? The sum.

My interest peaked once again in this question of "how can God be everything?" when I attended a concert in Atlanta, Georgia. Brooke Fraser (probably my favorite songwriter. Yes, man card suspended. Shut it.) performed this song, "Arithmetic," that she recorded on her first album (the one that made her Kiwi-famous) and I love the refrain:

I won't find what I am looking for
If I only see by keeping score
'Cause I know now you are so much more than arithmetic
'Cause if I add, if I subtract
If I give it all, try to take some back
I've forgotten the freedom that comes from the fact
That you are the sum
So you are the one
I want

When we say "God is everything" we're saying he is infinite. We're saying we cannot keep his score. We're saying, admitting, declaring that he is the One. The sum. We're saying he is our Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle. The numero uno of our wish list.
Check it:

 

Isaiah 26:3-4