Unedited

When I was a kid, our old Quasar would receive 3 TV stations - two and a half really, because one of them was only on part of the time. There were a lot of movies on "regular" TV back then - Hollywood blockbusters would be shown on Saturday nights, Sunday nights, and usually a weekday evening as well.

When a movie came on there would often be a graphic superimposed on the screen for a moment that said "Edited for television". I asked my dad what that meant, and he explained that some parts of the movie were cut out to make it suitable for television or to fit a time slot.

I felt cheated! I wanted to see the entire movie, not just the parts some censor or clock-watcher thought were "appropriate."

Have we "edited" God? We cut out the parts of Him we feel might not be suitable for the audience - "No thanks, Lord, we really don't go for that around here..." We try to contain Him by controlling the time frame in which He is allowed to work. We reduce Him from the omnipotent creator, healer, and deliverer to a doctrinal set of more predictable actions.

And we feel cheated - because our tame, sterile, manageable God is not the God of the Bible.

I once heard Jack Taylor say that what we need is "Jesus, on the scene, unedited."

We don't need a life-sized God - we need God as big as we can get Him.