Mystery

Besides being a really good for a game of hang-man, mystery is a word that I’ve been thinking about more and more recently. I think God is an awesome mystery! And I think it’s something that we can tend to lose sight of.

The more you know about Him, the more you know how little you really know about Him. It’s impossible to imagine just how big and majestic He really is; which also means it’s impossible to imagine how much grace it takes for Him to be small enough to relate with us.

And I’m beginning to see that I’ve never really been able describe Him. God is a person of boundless love, and endless goodness, and His ways are far above my ways, and His thoughts above my thoughts. And I’m beginning to think that artists have it right. I don’t think all our rational thinking, logical discussion, and concrete doctrine can even begin to define Him. I think the closest pictures of God are seen in music, poetry, and other arts, like dance.

There’s something about music that reaches the heart. And after all, that’s where Jesus lives! The resonance, harmony, and emotion of music can somehow make us aware of Him without a single word. Whereas poetry taps into the essence of words. And after all, Jesus is the Word! God’s words have creative power. And being made in His image, our words can echo that power, reminding us of our Source. And other arts too are able to express these mysteries of God.

I think God is somewhere behind ideas and words, somewhere behind emotions and expressions, behind actions and motives. He’s at least greater than the sum of His parts. He’s spirit, and that alone is mysterious to us body-bound creatures.

Now I guess none of these descriptions are new or fantastic. And I hope you’ve had the chance to learn the same kind of thing in your walk with Him. I guess I’m just trying to share one of recent things I’m learning about Him. As God works and moves in my heart, I’m beginning to see that He is Heart too. And, I know, that sentence doesn’t make sense to me either. But neither does He.

Free Diving

Well I feel like a lot of stuff has been going on, and I’ve been learning a heck of a lot. But every time I set down to blog something I just draw a blank. I suppose, in part, it’s just the frustration of the difficulty in relating the full reality of our experiences to you, our friends and family, who, though caring and concerned and supportive, are in fact thousands of miles away and have a day to get on with. It’s difficult to put 3D, multi-color reality into black and white. Lemme try this:

I think it’s like free-diving. You know, when you take your biggest breath and dive down as deep as you can to reach that green dive toy in the deep end, or to get a closer look at that purple sea urchin. It was a fun struggle against the pressure to get down there, but now you’re running out of breath and you need to get back to the surface quick. You push off the bottom, jet for the top, and you feel your chest quiver as you fight the urge to breath in. Those last 5 feet are the worst, as you feel like your lungs are full of fire, you’re sure you won’t make it. You close your eyes and concentrate, trying to shutting out the pain. You’re…al…most…there.

So imagine that pain is like homesickness. I think that’s kinda where I’m at. But as I close my eyes and concentrate, I find that God is still teaching me some pretty awesome stuff. But by this point in the post, I’ve typed, deleted, re-typed, and re-deleted several paragraphs trying to give you a good example. It’s tough. I guess you’ll just have to take me out for coffee sometime in May and we can catch up. Starbucks vanilla latte, no foam, please. For the mean time, believe me, I’m trying to come up with something interesting to say.