Boxes are good for everything from cereal and crackers, to tissues and televisions.  They come in all kinds of sizes to fit just about anything you might want to send or store.  People ship the strangest things sometimes.  Go online and you can get anything you want shipped to you, and it will most likely arrive in a box.  My guess is you have more than one thing in your house that is contained in a box right now.

As people we are so use to everything fitting into boxes, having a certain size and shape.  This is a great principle when it comes to shipping something, but gets us into trouble when we start applying that principle to God’s kingdom.  Why?  God doesn’t work in boxes!  He doesn’t ship things in neat packages, He doesn’t have them show up on our doorstep or in our mailbox.  His plans don’t fit the constraints of a 6 sided cube like shape we have designed.  No box can contain God.  (1 Kings 8:27 )

Then we look at God’s creation.  Have you ever seen a box in the shape of Gods image? No?  Why not?  We don’t fit into boxes either!  We were created in God’s image and that most certainly does not fit into a box. (Gen 1:27 )  Realizing this makes living the christian life much easier.  These boxes can be anything from simple things like fashion, to issues like what your gifts "should" be.  They are all boxes that man has decided make you "look like a christian".   When we stop trying to put ourselves into a man made box labeled "christian", or a box someone has labeled for us, we break down artificial man made barriers.  These barriers prevent us from allowing God to do what He wants to do in our lives.  We need to be people that let God mold us into who He desires us to be, not allowing people to force us into the shape of a box they erect for us.

Once these boxes have been put around you it can become difficult to determine what is a box and what is God molding you.  There is only one way to figure this out, and that is by going to the one who wants to mold you into His image, the one we should want to be like, Christ.  If our desire is to be like Him, we should be asking Him to help us get out of those boxes that have been falsely put around us, and look to Him for who we are to be.  By doing that we will become more Christ like, but not through man made boxes.  There is no box that is just right for us, because the image of God doesn’t fit in a box.  Where we fit best is in the hand of God, where He can mold us the way he desires.  "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." (1 Pet 5:6 )  In order for us to truly be in the hand of God we must humble ourselves, ask Him to take us out of the boxes, and trust Him because we know His plan is best. (Jer 29:11 )