The Limitlessness of God

I remember my dad bringing me out to view a lunar eclipse. We gathered together with some neighbors late at night, way past my bedtime. I was about four years old. It is one of my earliest remembrances of childhood and God. As we gathered in the moonlit night, awaiting the eclipse, my dad explained how the universe, the stars and galaxies, had no known end. He was a mechanical engineering student at the time, so it was from a scientific cosmological viewpoint rather than a theological one. It would be nearly four decades later before he came to know God personally. Yet that night, he unwittingly put the fear of God in me. Not like a preacher might, but because he spoke of the universe being limitless.

That sense of the universe having no end-point scared me. It made me feel so small. Of course—I was! Not just as a child, but as one human within the vastness of the universe. Even the lunar eclipse declared God's power and majesty to me that night. Did I fully understand what was taking place? Not hardly! Did I really understand the limitlessness of deep stellar space? Of course not. But I did have a sense God had to be much greater than the universe, though my dad hadn't spoken of God.
I still don't grasp the limitlessness of the universe, or of eternity, nor God. Isn't that the point of faith? Obviously, if I or anyone could fully comprehend God's eternal nature and existence—able to understand God and His creation—then God would be no greater than my mind, my understanding. This is the limitedness of an athiest—he doesn't see beyond himself. Seeing beyond ourselves is a requirement of faith (Heb 11:6—http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Heb11.6).
The night of that lunar eclipse, my limited childhood sense of limitlessness helped me see beyond myself. This was a beginning point of faith for me. In Pss 19 it says, "The heavens declare the glory of God." Somehow, through my dad's words, God began revealing Himself to me. My first sense of God was of limitlessness—infinity. This must be the reason I have such a strong reaction towards the restrictiveness of religion, legalism, and dogmatism.  Each one tends to contradict and objectify God and His eternal nature. Each puts limits on He who is limitless.
In my morning devotional, I read the greeting of Peter's first epistle, and was reminded of the human tendency of limiting God. We all do it, mostly unintentional, whether we realize it or not. Man has a propensity for putting a fence around God—some form of limitation. Why? The simple answer is it makes God manageable for us, and, in some self-deluded manner, puts us in control. Now don't get me wrong, I like control and limits just like the next person! It's a way of coping—especially when life is spinning out of control. But I don't see this as a good, nor helpful thing to do.
In Peter's greeting [http://biblia.com/bible/godsword/1Pe1.1], he addresses, "God's chosen people." He speaks of God knowing them long ago, and choosing them so they could lead holy (godly) lives. Theologically, we may want to explain how God has set certain limits on people and life. Yet, when reading further through this epistle, Peter strongly encourages believers to see how God has removed limitations and constraints on their lives. He exhorts believers to cast off the limitations of life in this world through the power of God's limitless favor and power. There is also a strong exhortation of persevering in faith.
We may see the word chosen and interpret it as meaning special. God spoke strongly to His chosen people, Israel, that this was a wrong view of the word chosen. The same holds true for those of us within the church. One group of believers may see this as a restriction upon who is included. Another group may see it being a limitation of how much favor God will extend. Either way it is a restriction man is imposing, based upon a limited understanding of God.
Nearly six decades later, I still marvel with childlike faith in God's limitlessness. I'm coming to see, in a much simpler light, what was complicated to me before. Daily I see how important living by faith truly is—an utter confidence in a limitless God. The universe isn't so endless, it's infinite, just as He–who created it and me–is infinite.
Asking the following questions of ourselves from time to time, even daily, can be of great value. How do I impose limitations on God? How am I living under the constraints of this world, rather than the limitlessness of God's favor?