The God Who Won’t Fit in My Head
I recently came across a line in G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy that stopped me in my tracks. In a chapter contrasting logic and imagination, Chesterton writes:
“The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
That sentence hit me hard. I underlined it, sat back, and thought about how much it describes my own journey with theology.
Theology has always been a subject I’ve loved—one of the first things that really awakened my mind and heart when I was young. I remember the early days of exploring the mystery of God. Back then, I didn’t need every answer. I was okay with mystery. I didn’t feel threatened by the things I didn’t understand. I actually found comfort in the fact that God’s ways were higher than mine. There was awe in that. Beauty. Wonder.
But over time, something shifted. Slowly, without even realizing it, my approach became more analytical. I started to trade wonder for certainty. I began to read theology not like poetry, but like a textbook. I started systematizing, categorizing, explaining. I thought that if I could just study enough, I could fit the God of the universe neatly into my theological framework. I wanted to get the heavens into my head.
And like Chesterton said, it nearly split.
It wasn’t that the logic was wrong—I still believe in the value of study, doctrine, and reason. But something was missing. My faith had started to feel dry, clinical, even burdensome at times. The more I tried to understand everything, the more I felt overwhelmed by the weight of mystery I could not resolve.
Eventually, I began to let go. Not of faith—but of the illusion that I could master it.
As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, “Now we see through a glass, darkly.” That phrase feels more honest to me now than ever before. There’s a sacredness in that haze, a reverence in realizing that even the clearest glimpses we get of God are partial and imperfect.
These days, I feel less like a theologian trying to build a system and more like a child on an airplane—flying through the skies with wide eyes and no clue how it’s all happening. Sure, I could try to explain the mechanics of flight. I could give you an answer I once read in a book. But it would probably be laughably wrong. What I can do, though, is sit by the window and stare out at the clouds. I can marvel at the fields below that look like toy models. I can feel the thrill of crossing an entire ocean in mere hours.
And that’s how I find myself approaching God now. Less like an expert, more like a child. Less about answers, more about amazement.
I still love theology. I still read books and wrestle with difficult doctrines. But I no longer feel the need to force mystery into submission. I’ve come to believe that mystery isn’t the enemy of faith—it’s the birthplace of it.
God doesn’t need me to figure Him out. He invites me to behold Him.
There’s freedom in that. Freedom to wonder. Freedom to worship. Freedom to say, “I don’t understand,” and still feel safe. Because maybe the point was never to explain all of heaven, but to gaze at it with reverent joy—like a child looking out the window at something far too big to comprehend.
And maybe that’s exactly where faith begins.
