Do not be mistaken: God is not contained within the church – inside its walls or any of the structures the church has put forth to try and capture God’s essence. God may be there at the church building if you carry God there with you inside yourself. Or God may be noticeably (or not so noticeably) absent. God comes and goes as God pleases, so there are many places you might find God.

God is also not contained by any words written about God, or that will or could be written about God. God is outside words and above them and also weaves Godself through, around and among all words as God chooses. God is definitely not contained by the English word “God.” In fact, God is wholly separate from the word “God” and even using that word can be a waste of time. Sometimes silence is a more accurate representation of God than uttering the word “God.” Some of God’s people were right when they just sought to not say the name of God, I think.

God is also not your ideas about God. It is helpful to imagine what you believe God is like, but God also exists outside your imagining. Just when you have come to some idea you believe encompasses God, God will move away from and confound that understanding so you are ever discovering the depths of God. And God is deep.

If god appears to be contained by any of the above, then the god you have is no longer God and never was God.

God is not owned by any one person or people group, though there are many who have tried to say they know the way to find God and get to God. God is not hindered or deterred by what any of those people say about him. He will just continue being God no matter what claims they make about him. Their ideas about God do not contain God, nor do their words, as noted above.  

God is not contained within Christianity then. God is bigger than any one belief system. God did not design Christianity as the exclusive path to Godself, nor did God seek to be contained by or inhabit a religion. If God is God, then he is available to everyone no matter what the systems set up to point to God say. God is bigger and more accessible than that. Sometimes those systems get in the way of people finding God. Don’t let them do that to you.  

God is free and God is spirit.

God is movement itself and God has enlivened all things to interrelate with each other. God is the animator of all things and the gravity between them. This is to say God is active and not static. It begs the question, “Can God choose to be different than God was previously?” God is not unmoved. God is in motion and is motion itself.