Buying a big ticket item, like a car or a house, can take a long time.  It’s a huge decision, with impact on where we live and what we drive for years, or even decades, so rightfully, we choose carefully.

For some, buying a small ticket item, like a pair of gloves or a pocketbook, takes a long time.  I remember trips to the mall with my friends in my youth, when I was “learning the ropes” of shopping.  Buying a sweater could literally take hours, because I walked through all the stores to see what was there, and then compared the sweaters one to another before making a decision to purchase.

Comparing cars, comparing houses, comparing pocketbooks.  Don’t get me wrong, I like shopping, I like comparing and deciding and bringing home a good item.  It doesn’t really matter what the item is, having many options to compare is what we expect in the USA.  Culturally and socially, we like it.  We expect, based on our experience that there are more than enough options to get exactly what we want, whether it be one of 500,000 apps for an iPhone, or one of 100 stores in which to find the perfect winter coat – down to the size, style, color, and shade of color!

Even in designing a blog such as this, there are innumerable choices for design, color, menus, and fonts.  Choices that did not come out of my head, but are just “there,” ready to be looked at and decided upon.  Someone designs these options, and I, in turn, get the chance to shop around, exercise my ability to compare and contrast, and to get the best.

Our thought process fuels much of media and entertainment, politics and sports.  It is interesting to read reviews – people’s opinions – about movies, books, and music, to make it easier to compare and decide which movies, books and music we want to spend our time on.

It makes sense to compare political candidates.  Whether Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, or Barack Obama is our next president is important to the future of our nation, and we all know this.  By watching debates, reading articles, reviewing their records,  it becomes clear that one of these presidential candidates is who we want in the leadership role – or don’t – for the next four years.

Comparing, evaluating, sifting through evidence – that is how we are taught to make decisions and to arrive at conclusions.  The direction of culture and availability of choices makes it easier and easier for us to compare and decide.  If we suddenly lost our ability to compare and contrast, to decide between options, we would be less than human, reduced to robots.  Someone who has “run out of options” is in a place none of us envy.

So, by the same standards, there appear to be many, many choices when it comes to choosing God. Some go about their search for a higher power by beginning with their mind’s ability to sift through the options to arrive at the “perfect deity.”  Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine by Eric Weiner is a roadmap for anyone who wants to try out these different approaches to find God, whoever God may be.  I can see why this is appealing to many, as it makes sense to comparison shop to find the best option for us – it how we make decisions in less significant areas of life. So why not with God?

The answer is simple, so simple that it is easy to miss.

If God is someone we can compare to another, getting a rating depending on my preferences, desires, or the mood I happen to be in, can He be the ultimate being, powerful and true, behind all processes of nature and science, capable of anything at anytime, anywhere?

The true God is so outstanding, so above all comparison, that our ability to compare and make choices means next to nothing.  God is, and there is none like Him.

God is outside the realm of comparison and outside the limits of the human mind.  And that is disconcerting.  For if we cannot pick our God out of a menu of options, then our position is not one of choosing, but in submitting to His choices.

We all instinctively know this, it is written into our DNA.  Yet, how often are we fooled into thinking that we can pick and choose whatever deity fits our preferences.

As the prophet Isaiah, speaking to the nation of Israel, expressed,

To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare with Him? Isaiah 40:18 ESV

To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.  Isaiah 40:25, 26 ESV