ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
July 7, 2026
Guest Etching: Jim Cook
The God Who Broke the Box
A spoken-word meditation
I used to have God…
in a box.
Not because I didn’t love Him.
I did.
But a God in a box is easier to understand.
Easier to defend.
Easier to explain.
I built that box with Scripture,
with doctrine,
with certainty,
with all the answers I thought I had collected along the way.
It was a beautiful box.
Safe.
Orderly.
Comforting.
And I mistook my box…
for God.
Then life began to pry at the corners.
Questions I couldn’t answer.
Pain I couldn’t explain.
People whose stories didn’t fit my theology.
God pushed against the walls.
Until one day…
the box exploded.
So I built another.
Bigger.
Smarter.
More sophisticated.
Surely this one could contain Him.
But every time I thought I’d captured God…
He was already pressing against the edges.
Every new box lasted a little while…
until it didn’t.
Eventually, I stopped building boxes.
Instead…
I put God on a leash.
A long one.
Long enough for Him to roam through mystery,
through suffering,
through unanswered questions.
But not so long
that I couldn’t pull Him back
when He wandered too far beyond my comfort.
I still believed I was holding on to Him.
Then…
my son died.
Twenty-one years old.
Cancer.
In a single moment…
the leash snapped.
And it felt as though my right arm was torn away with it.
The arm that built the boxes.
The arm that held the leash.
The arm that believed it could somehow manage the Almighty.
Everything I thought I knew…
collapsed.
I didn’t lose my faith.
I lost my illusion
that faith meant certainty.
Now I stand at the edge of a wilderness.
God is there…
untamed.
He runs where He chooses.
Across mountains I cannot climb.
Into valleys I cannot see.
Through galaxies that leave me speechless.
I don’t chase Him anymore.
I couldn’t if I wanted to.
I simply watch.
I listen.
I wonder.
And somewhere in the mystery…
I discovered something I never found inside all those carefully built boxes.
The God I was trying to contain…
was never asking to be understood completely.
He was asking to be trusted.
The boxes are gone.
The leash is gone.
My right arm is gone.
But wonder remains.
And strangely…
so does hope.
Because the God who shattered every box I ever built…
also refused to abandon me
when my world shattered too.
Now I know.
I’d rather walk beside a God
who cannot be contained…
than worship one
small enough
to fit inside a box.
