Little Man Syndrome

Sometimes I'll be eavesdropping on peoples' private conversations and person A will make a statement that person B doesn't agree with, and if said statement has any sort of religious methodology then person B will say something along the lines of, "I'm surprised GOD isn't striking you with lightning right now!"

Of course, that statement is usually just a joke. It's a funny way of telling someone you think he or she is doctrinally out of line. But the other day I was talking about those kind of statements with a friend and we both came to the conclusion that the general consensus of Christians must be that GOD has "little man syndrome."

So of course I decided to do a little research into the Napoleon Complex...using my favorite trusty resource, Wikipedia!

And you know what, they had something interesting to say: "The term is used generally to describe people who are driven by a perceived handicap to overcompensate in other aspects of their lives...The conventional wisdom is that Napoleon compensated for his lack of height by seeking power, war and conquest."

I see this a lot. I think a lot of the times Christians tread carefully around GOD because we think that He needs us. We've somehow come to the conclusion that we have to be careful about offending GOD or somehow hurting His ego. We can't point out the things about Him that are confusing or illogical because secretly we view those as being (Dare I say it?) handicaps.

Now then, I'm not saying that it's okay to just go around saying things that one knows are deliberately untrue about GOD or that we ought to treat GOD flippantly. It's wrong to push GOD's buttons. And it's something I never care to do.

However. I am proposing that maybe, just maybe GOD can handle our confusion about Him. In fact, I would go so far as to say that even when we make crazy accusations at Him when we're upset, He doesn't get angry. I bet He even kind of understands. He gets that we're human and that a lot of the time the stuff He does doesn't really make sense to us. In fact, it's far less limiting to GOD for us to recognize that GOD can handle our "doctrinally out of line" statements.

GOD isn't some egomaniac on a power-trip. I think that's plainly demonstrated by His willingness to let us choose whether or not we want to obey Him, trust Him, or even just plain believe in Him. GOD strongly desires those things from us, but if we don't give them to Him, He'll still go on being GOD. He's not some little man suffering from insecurity who needs followers and countries and kingdoms and power to feel like He really is GOD. He wants and deserves those things. But He does not need them, nor is He defined by them.