The following texts are from Isaiah 55:6-9 and 46:9-10, and when you read them, please keep in mind that although the Holy Scriptures do stand alone as perfect truth, they are also prone to misinterpretation by us flawed humans...so I ask for your discretion and open-mindedness.
"[6] Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
[7] Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
[8] 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,'
declares the LORD.
[9] 'As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.'"
"[9] 'Remember the former things, those of long ago;
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
[10] I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.'"
Almost three months have passed since I started writing this post, and now that I have returned to finish the task, I find myself in a much different mood (although mood isn't quite the right word) of spirit than back in the beginning of August. Not that I don't find God "unfathomable" still, but rather I now think God is more interested in having us pursue Him and His Presence than I used to think; even though He is ultimately infinite, yet I believe we can come to a deeper understanding of Him through His Spirit. This, of course, is probably much more involved than any of us can imagine...but the process appeals to me.
To borrow a phrase from Michael Gungor's weblog (but really to borrow only this phrase would fail to justly portray his godly wisdom, so check out that link, seriously!), "Faith in God is not supposed to be primarily cognitive, it’s supposed to be an entirely different way of living." He goes on to write about a comparison between our understanding of God and our understanding of music. We don't understand music by simply studying musical theory, looking at notes written on a page, and memorizing the different types of instruments used to make music. Rather, we understand music most fully by experiencing it. Listen, feel, breathe, play it, dance, sing.
So can we understand God completely? Of course not. How could we expect to understand God without experiencing Him and His presence? Therefore, I would contend that if we were to be still and know that He is God, He will bless us with glimpses into His Nature and His Providence. Yes, He is unfathomable. But He is knowable, and He desires to be known by us as we are known by Him - even if it takes an eternity! Or perhaps, so that it takes an eternity.
In closing, I will share a moment that I experienced with our Savior and LORD this morning. I sat after breakfast, willing myself to pray and start my day right. After a few minutes of distractions running through my head, I decided to try picturing myself before the throne of God. Almost immediately, I began to feel like I had been missing something important, and I focused more. I could 'see' my spirit in God's presence, and He was asking me, "What do you need?" At first, I didn't get it. But then I realized how much I had been trying to live on my own, instead of relying on the Holy Spirit in my life. In mere seconds (at least, I don't recall it being very long), God had revealed something to me that I desperately yearned for without knowing that I was. I see this as only a small example of the extent to which He will reach for our heart-knowing.
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Author's note: The majority of this post is very much inspired by reading my roommate Nik's blog that he wrote a month ago now. If you're reading this and you don't read Carving Silence already, do yourself a favor...read his stuff. I'd like to say he's more eloquent than I could ever be, but I think it might bother him to say that, so instead, I'll just comment that the two of us write very differently sometimes, and many times the difference is in his favor.
This is an image of the note I wrote while near the top of Granite Peak. It reflects a lot of the thoughts and feelings that were coursing through my spirit at the time. In case my handwriting's not legible enough (keep in mind, I was using a cheap ball-point pen in high-altitude, low-temperature conditions), here's a transcript of what it says:
With all that's been juggled around in my head, I would need to write a pretty long blog to get it out in its entirety...so to spare you folks reading, I'll
Y'know what? No. I'm not going to make this blog note another "abridged entry". My apologies if you don't feel like actually sitting down for a few minutes with me (metaphorically speaking) and joining your thoughts with mine, but I really am going to fly, so strap yourselves in tight.
Bandages: they serve their original purposes well enough. But I felt like it was a waste of perfectly good white space not to use the medical tape on my hand for jotting down stuff I didn't want to forget. So here, on my palm essentially, I have two items written down for my convenience.
Most people probably think of God as a pretty happy guy. After all, not everyone is blessed with the attributes of eternity, omnipresence (can be everywhere at the same time), and generally power over the whole universe that He created, so why shouldn't He be happy?
I’ll tell you why. Because He is filled with pain. Not just pain from all of the evil that is destroying the world, but because I believe He knows the future of each individual, whether he or she is saved or not. And so the pain He feels comes from knowing the awful fate someone will face if they die in their unbelief. He knows the eternal suffering that is in store for many of the people on our planet, and He weeps for them...He grieves for them...He pleads with them...and He died for them. The amount of pain that one person would feel in hell, God feels it multiplied by every single lost person on this earth.
God is not just going to lie down and cry for those lost, however...just like a parent who is in the supermarket and suddenly realizes their child is not at their side, God has dropped everything else and is searching for you, his lost child. If you've been found by Him and are trying to help people see that God is seeking them, awesome. Keep it up. But if God hasn't taken hold of you in His arms and rejoiced in finding you at long last, then realize this: God feels your pain, because He made you and loves you even now.
God is searching for you, but in this case, He can't use His divine power to spot-light every lost person in this world to find them. If He did, would that be giving them a choice, or would that just be forcing His godliness on them and turning them into people who follow God because they aren't able to choose anything else? Instead, God searches for you knowing that you might be hiding from Him, or running away from Him. Why do you hide? Why do you flee? Our God who made us cares for us, and weeps with a broken heart for us until He finds us.
His love can save us, and He longs to save everyone. The word that Christians like to throw around, "salvation", is really what God's all about: saving people, just like a shepherd saves sheep. His pain and sorrow can only be replaced with true, pure joy when every lost sheep has been found and rescued from danger.
I’m going to close this thought with a couple sentences from a book called John. If you've ever gone to Sunday school, you probably have heard it before, but only the first part: "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again."
This next part is not as easy to hear, so only read it if you're ready for it: "Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. This is the crisis we're in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won't come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is." (from The Message adaptation of John 3:16-21)
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Author's note: I actually wrote this a few months ago on Facebook, so this might seem familiar to a few of you.
