I’ve frequently heard our understanding of God described as being like looking at a diamond. Turn a diamond this way and that and you see different facets of the same jewel. Look at God throughout the Bible and you see different aspects of His character, but still the same God. I, however, have come to look at my understanding of God as being like a Rubik’s cube.
Allow me to elaborate.
When you first get a Rubik’s cube, all the colors are jumbled together. You have a mixed up picture of what it is supposed to look like. Maybe one side is mostly scattered yellow blocks while another is predominantly green. You can look at all the pieces, but it doesn’t quite make sense. But you know it can and will.
Now, once you get that Rubik’s cube, you’re not going to just put it on your bedside table for display in its mixed-up state. No, you’re going to mess with it, try to figure out how it works, try to get all the colors in the right spot. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll work on it for hours without success. At this point, you have several options. You can put the cube down in frustration and decide it’s good enough as it is. You can turn to the instructions and spend a good many more hours doing and undoing and maybe eventually getting it right. Or you can turn to a master and have them teach you.
Similarly, when we first come to know God, our picture of Him is incomplete, jumbled. Maybe we have a greater view of His love than His justice or of His holiness instead of His grace. We have all we need to get a complete picture, the Bible and the Holy Spirit, but we don’t yet know how it all works together.
We’re not going to be content at first with our mixed up understanding of God. We’ll try to figure Him out on our own, using the resources available to us in His Word. But there is so much there, it is easy to get confused and frustrated and want to just say “Forget it!” and go on with an incomplete grasp of God’s character. But if you turn to the Master, He can show you Himself. Slowly, bit by bit, He arranges the pieces in their proper location. Sometimes, you find that what you thought was a good picture of something, wasn’t really and it was actually still mixed up. Sometimes, the arrangement doesn’t make sense—then with a quick twist, you see the design. Day by day, as we study under the Master, we can see how all the pieces fit together.
Obviously, it isn’t a perfect analogy. Some people can do a Rubik’s cube in seconds. And each side of a Rubik’s cube is a single color. But if you imagine it as a 7x7 cube and each side as a magnificent painting, you get a better idea of the complexity of God’s character and the difficulties involved in attempting to sort it out yourself. Especially if the picture on the box is torn and impossible to see clearly—something that happened to our grasp of God when Adam sinned.
So stop a moment and think: when was the last time you turned to the Master to have Him show you how the Rubik’s cube of His character is supposed to fit together? Have you bothered to try to rearrange the panels to see the true picture? Are you tired of trying to do it on your own? Remember, there is only one Man who ever completed it on His own. And He was God incarnate. If you want to understand God, go to God and He’ll happily guide you on your way.
