Big

Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. – Psalm 24:9 (NIV) 

 “Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates” and its permutations are laced throughout the songs of the faith, always brassy, loud, all stops out. Picture it: God headed toward the entrance with such enormity that the gates have to be more than just flung open; even the lintels have to be raised to fit the glory and the giantness of this God. Impressive. 

Which is fine; I’m sure God’s very big. It’s just that you should probably also keep in mind that the one that barges through the gates with big-God energy just as often shows up tiny and windblown instead. You could bar the gates instead of fling them wide, could lock ’em up tight as can be, and they wouldn’t be proof against how small God can get.  

Have they made gates tight enough that a mustard seed can’t be pushed through?  

Are there walls high enough that the wind can’t blow a few grains of yeast over the top? 

Is there a border fence so impenetrable that a prodigal couldn’t scale them if he were desperate enough? 

Is there a nothingness so complete that a tiny “let there be” couldn’t fill it to the brim with existence?  

Of course God can be big. But God doesn’t have, like, a complex about it. Doesn’t need to puff out their chest and hold their arms six inches from their sides to walk down the street. Is willing to get as small as it takes to work their way into your locked-up heart. 

Prayer
Unfathomably huge; unimaginably tiny. Whichever way you show up, let me open the gates for your arrival. Amen.

About the Author
Quinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Learn more about it and find him on Facebook at Quinn G. Caldwell.