narrow minded

If you are a Christian, you would have heard it before. Maybe from your friends, from the people you work with, from well wishers, enemies, anyone - that to be a Christian is to be 'narrow minded' - that is, to be closed off from all the other possibilities that are out there, that our thoughts pass through a filter that stop us enjoying all that there is to enjoy from life, that we take a stance on reality that limits us somehow, and leads us to the wrong decisions. That it isn't a cerebral endeavour.

How far away from the truth could that statement be.

My only defence against this statement is... God. God is not something that can be easily comprehended, simplified, understood. In the hymn 'Crown him with many crowns', God is described as "ineffably sublime" (always the bit as a kid where I nudge a friend next to me and ask, 'What's ineffable mean??')
When I found out ineffable meant unknowable, I couldn't help but laugh, and agree. I can't just wrap my head around God and say of him 'I'm done. Next!'. The giving of our lives to God signifies the kind of timeframe that we need to just get a glimpse of what he's about. The eternal reward of Heaven gives us all time to find out.. so you could say that an infinite amount of time is sufficient for understanding God. A recurring theme within the New Testament talks about the boundless, imcomparable riches of Christ.

If I were on a quest to be narrow minded, I'd be much better off not thinking about God altogether, just to make my life simpler. Jesus says of himself that he is 'The Life', that he has come to 'bring life, and life in its fullness'. Far be it from him to narrow our gaze - he comes to broaden it to show us what real living can be like. Take any other lifestyle, take any other God but him, and we take second best for our minds. Living for God comes with it's own set of complexities - but all worthwhile for what it entails. One thing's for sure it that it never stops you thinking.