God is hard to understand. Why is that? He is so elusive, in fact, that some people do not believe He exists. Why, if it’s important that we know Him, has He made it so difficult?          

I don’t know if it’s correct to say God has made it difficult, but however it has happened, the difficulty lies in two simple facts: God is infinite, and we humans are finite.          

I confronted these facts again recently when I was trying to come up with a metaphor for God—some illustration that could make God more understandable to children. I wanted to be able to say, “He’s like . . .,” but I failed.          

I failed because God is infinite, and any explanation I can come up with is, by definition, finite. It’s like trying to create a symphony with nothing but a bicycle horn. No, it’s actually more extreme than that, because both a bicycle horn and a symphony are finite.          

It is occasionally possible to get some sense of infinity by thinking in finite terms. For example, I once heard this explanation of eternity: Imagine that in outer space there is a ball bearing the size of planet earth, and there is also a space mosquito buzzing around in the galaxy. Every thousand years or so this space mosquito—the usual size for space mosquitoes, less than a quarter of an inch long—buzzes by the giant steel ball and grazes it with one wing, then buzzes off to other stars and solar systems (I was going to say to other galaxies, but that wouldn’t be believable). The space mosquito and its descendents keep passing by the giant steel ball once every thousand years or so, grazing it with just one tiny, gossamer wing, until the ball bearing, originally 25,000 miles in circumference, has been worn completely away by the friction of all those passing mosquito wings. When the giant ball bearing has completely disappeared, then eternity will have just begun.         

Okay, so that’s cute, you may say, but it doesn’t tell me much about God. You’re right. That’s the problem: How do you explain God?         

Some cultures have attempted to represent God, or the gods, with physical images—idols the Bible called them. The Bible denounced idols. This is because idol worship was a particularly grotesque attempt to explain infinite God by finite means. Idol worshippers were saying, “God is like this,” when, in actual fact, He was not like that at all.         

Through the prophet Isaiah, God addressed the contrast between His infinity and finite idols. “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God,” said God in Isaiah 44:6. Later in the chapter He described the folly of the man who worshipped idols:

“He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak . . . . Some of it he takes and warms himself. He kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; . . . Half of the wood he burns in the fire, . . . . from the rest he makes a god.” (Isaiah 44:14-17, NIV)         

God did create a solution to the challenge of infinity, yet even in the solution there is mystery. Jesus, born of a virgin, with Mary as His mother and God as His father, came to the planet as a human babe in arms. The Bible calls Him Immanuel, which means “God with us.” He wrapped His infinity in a finite human body. God was reduced to tinyness—to a reality we could grasp. If you’ve seen me, you have seen God, He explained to His followers (John 14:9).          

Can we explain every detail of the Incarnation? No more than a frog can explain calculus, or an earthworm a piano concerto. But the fact that math and music elude frogs and earthworms does not render those realities pointless. Likewise, human limitations in understanding God are just that—limitations. They do not disallow the infinite reality beyond.         

As the Christmas season approaches, our best chance of understanding the babe in a manger will be found in a spirit of humility—of understanding that there is so much we cannot understand, but that our finite minds will grasp more if we approach Him with open hearts.         

B.W.