On Knowing God - Part 2

Science and modernity have done us all a favor. They have delivered us from our dilutions and demythologized the mysteries. What once seemed unknowable can now be known. What was once unseen, we now can photograph, download and share with the world. We have learned to take the complex and break it down into parts and comprehensible subparts. Our planet seems eerily small now that satellites and computer imagery have apparently charted every square inch of earth.  

These advancements would be exciting if they were not so disappointing. We love the data technology supplies, but aren’t we just a little disappointed, for example, to discover a beautiful sunset can be the mere result of smog? Even so, the cosmic mysteries are far from uncovered. The more science reveals about creation, the more it exposes how much we do not know. New discoveries often debunk old presuppositions and theory, supplanting what was once taught in the academy for hard fact. Relatively speaking, the universe is yet undiscovered and remains frontier.

From the microscope to the telescope, there are vast unknown and un-quantified qualities luring us with potential for discovery. And if this is the case with creation, how much more can this be said of the Creator? For all of our supposed knowing, how much do we not know? And is our knowing for the sake of relationship or the mere acquisition of information? That is to say, do we know him or do we know about him? And do we assume we can demythologize the Divine? Wouldn’t we be disappointed if this were possible?

I remember one evening several years ago when my daughter was just four years old, filled with wonderful innocence and endearing naiveté. We were out on the porch together enjoying the lights of the night sky. Snuggled up in my lap looking up at the stars she asked, “Daddy, get me the moon”. Time stood still as I savored the moment. Her request moved me with both delight and dread. It was a moment that revealed complete trust and confidence in me her father. And it was putting me on notice that soon would be the day for her disillusioning and my dethronement – the day she would be old enough to realize the hands that protect her will not always be there, that this more knowing figure in her life is not all-knowing, that her strong father is not almighty. Ultimately she would come to know I fail and am insufficient for all she needs. The day will come when she knows me enough to be bored with me and my limited interests and personality, when she realizes I am a small man in a very big world. I grieved her eventual disappointment.

But this is not our experience with our heavenly Father. As we mature and grow to know him he gets bigger rather than smaller. He seems to be more wonderful than before. Though we grow out of naiveté he remains amazing. He is with us and beyond us. With God there can never be disappointment with his depth, his richness, complexity or capacity. There is always another bend in the road, an un-crested hill with promise of hope, a new horizon and another world.

“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Ps 8:1-4 (NIV)

 

On Knowing God

“…I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…”  Phil 3:8 (NAS)

Each new day brings potential for surprise and bewilderment. Every morning offers an unmarked frontier, putting forward something uncharted, beyond yesterdays’ horizon, suggesting the un-surveyed. God’s desire is for us to come to know him, to engage the process of knowing, to enter into relationship, but there is more to know than we can know and there is a surplus of the Divine unexhausted by all our powers of exploration and observation.

There is a knowing only experienced by way of divine and gracious revelation. It is bequeathed – a gift to be received and will not be owned by vigorous pursuit. Some things will only be known by the exercise of Divine sovereignty and will not be captured or possessed by way of determined ambition. We can know him, but our knowledge is never comprehensive. We learn, but learning should be taken with large doses of humility for there is no end to the learning, the knowing, the discovery.

Although we cannot exhaust the Scriptures, they do not exhaust the whole of God. The Scriptures are a faithful, steadfast and authoritative guide for the community of faith. God chooses to be known in the Scriptures, yet they do not wholly house, contain or limit him. They do not create boundaries for him so much as they create boundaries, limitations and the like for us. Although we pursue God by way of the biblical narrative, knowing the Scriptures is not always synonymous with knowing God. Scripture memorization is not equal to intimacy and Biblical verse quotation is not always indicative of worship or relationship.

We may be people of the Book, but as Christians we do not worship a book. Our Bible is an inspired means of knowing God, that is to say, a means to an end. It is not our God, an idol, or an object of worship. It is an inspired window allowing us to view of the Almighty, to focus in on his majesty and points us to the One we adore.

The Word of God in scripture invites us more to dance than academic endeavor, to romance as much as rigorous reading, to a kiss as much as critical encounter. It is alive as it comes off the page and into our lives now, incarnate, and whisper fresh. A full embracing hug, it is a lovesome song, enticing our soul, romancing our heart.

More than dry data, it is courtship, a poem, passionate encounter, deep with feeling and intimate lure. The Word is love calling to lover, gestures of love by God the great lover, creating connection points of ancient, innate familial knowing, bridging deep impassable places of the soul, transcending a purely rational encounter. Bypassing the arrogance of presumptuous reason, it catches us off guard with a humility and vulnerability that breaches the fortress of reasoned inquiry.

Hear the love song - a song of betrothal, pleading with distant lover - God pursuing us, inviting us into him, into his house, into a marriage covenant. It is a proposal, God on one knee, humbling himself in ways we do not expect, come off his throne to meet us where we are and to say, “I love you… Will you marry me?” God is putting his heart out there where we can fully reject him. It is willful vulnerability of the Divine and it is astonishing. How could he humble himself so? What else but love?

What Would God Do if He Did Whatever He Wanted to Do? - Part 2

Are we comfortable with God’s tendency to be fresh and new? We prefer patterns and predictability, reproducible principles. We presume to systematize, categorize, and alphabetize the Alpha and Omega. We would observe God with objective distance and take notes. We would put God in a petri dish and from our observations we would reduce him to mere formulas. We would edit abridge and abbreviate the Almighty. The Bible becomes a manual for “tips and techniques.” Perhaps our hearts are in the right place but our efforts may be misplaced. All the while as we observe and deduce theological recipes and formulas we unwittingly prescribe acceptable parameters for the Lord. How good of us to show God his place.

We resist accepting God for his unpredictability while he seems comfortable with unresolved philosophical tension, dichotomies and seeming contradictions. He himself is the ultimate paradox. He is light and yet clothes himself in darkness. He is lion and the lamb; high priest and the sacrifice; servant and king. He is near as a song and distant as a sunset. He is peaceable love and a bloodstained warrior.

He is comfortable with the unpredictable, undisturbed with ambiguity. We would have consistently reproducible patterns of action/reaction. But God is out of the box if he does what he wants to do and may not submit to our prescribed principles and methodology. When he is who he is without our prearranged notions of deity, he is raw and edgy. He becomes unrefined, emergent, without prescription and blueprints.

Remember John the Baptist? The way of the Lord is made in the wilderness, in the yet-to-be developed geography. Oh, but don’t worry. The theologians and church folks will come behind and domesticate the terrain, develop, organize, build, set in order. But God, doing as he will, frequents the fringe of development and frontier, seemingly most present where things are just becoming – out where things are not-yet, still unpredictable – wilderness.

The wilderness prescribes nothing for God, offers no limitations, does not disallow. The wilderness permits God liberty to be fantastical in imagination, wild with desire, powerful in his will. The wilderness can be an uncultivated twisted growth of tangled untamed that daunts more civilized hearts. But, you see, he isn’t so civilized. He is more wild than domesticated and the wilderness invites God to be himself.

Out of the wilderness he calls his deliverers. Out of the wilderness he claims a people for his own. There he tempers his own. His more notable servants he tends to bring by way of the wilderness: Abraham’s journeys, Moses, the children of Israel, David, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul in Arabia, John the Revelator on a deserted island.

God seems to allow our buildings (see David’s exchange with God concerning building the temple - 2 Samuel 1:1-13) but do you think God rather preferred the portable tabernacle in the wilderness? Always ready for a move from one day to the next – unpredictability.

What Would God Do If He Did Whatever He Wanted To Do? - Part 1

“Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief.”Mark 6:5 (NKJ)

What would God do if he did whatever he wanted to do? What if we didn’t resist him with unbelief, cynicism, doubt, fear? What would he do if he did what he wanted to do?
Certainly he may come to church. But he has a tendency to misbehave in church. He contradicts some traditions, disorders the furniture, ruins the bake sale. He has put a beating on a few people – in church. When he comes he rocks the boat. He looks to see what you put in the offering; he challenges your theology, messes with your hermeneutic.

What if we let him out of the theological parameters we have fixed for him? Would he shock or offend us? Would he get beyond what we understand? And you can’t leave him alone. He might talk to the wrong people (e.g., the woman at the well, eating with publicans and sinners, etc.). If past behavior is any predictor of the future, he will misbehave. He will likely make us all uncomfortable.

Would he do that? Look, when you hear someone who says things like, “God wouldn’t do such and such” or “God wouldn’t use such and such a person”, this is usually someone who hasn’t seen God unrestricted. Some generous soul suggested we allow God a longer chain. What we ought to do is let him off the leash. It’s all over then.

Do we ask for revival because we are afraid to ask God to do what he really wants to do? We ask for revival (i.e., re-vive), to bring to life what was dead or to re-do an old thing. But God, doing as he pleases, may not choose revival or restoration. Why restore what has failed? No. Be sure, it may not revival or restoration he has in mind so much as a new morning.

We take his mercies from a Tupperware bowl or a zip-lock bag - you know, leftover God. Leftover God is safe. Leftover God is predictable. We know the routine. But it is not leftovers he has for you. His mercies are new every morning. New - not revived. Make no mistake, he doesn’t wish to revive so much as to reform (or re-form) – to make different. We want the good-ole-days of the past; he anticipates a good new day. He is not caught in paralytic nostalgia. We imagine God forlorn, reminiscent of the past. In reality he is into the present and the future.

What would he do if he did whatever he wanted to do? Would he provide thirst-quenching water to lesbians and gays? Would he woo the hearts of your neighbors? He might startle you, misbehave, surprise you, embrace you, convict you, whisper your name. He may just put on a show you have never seen before. He may leave you in the dark. He’ll save people you wouldn’t talk to, and love you all the while. If God does what he wants to do, anticipate incomprehensible redemption.

Relationship vs. Research - Part 5

God desires a love relationship with you that gets further and deeper than the commandments. Behavior modification is not an end in itself. We may restrain ourselves more than the commandments, due to love. It is not about the checklist.

Remember the rich young ruler who kept the commandments but still lacked something? Remember Paul the apostle who claimed to be perfect concerning the law yet did not know Christ? We certainly do need to be reminded of boundaries and proper behavior. We need occasional encouragement toward forbearance. A checklist may prove helpful, but covering the points on a checklist with mere mechanical precision may be done purely mechanically or perfunctorily. If there are valid points on the checklist, they serve to facilitate the relationship. The relationship does not serve the checklist. Yes, we need dos and don’ts. Without a ditch on either side of the road we might forget the road. Regulations may serve to keep us from death but life is in the relationship.

Knowing God requires more than cerebral engagement and playing by the rules. It is a total engagement of the person. It is an engagement of the mind, but an engagement of the heart as well. It includes the body, the soul, our feelings etc. All of these must join together for a synthesis of complete personhood in pursuit of the One who pursues us completely. To know God is not to be up to speed on the divine data. To know God is to experience and interact with God by way of the whole person. We must experience God. And having experienced God by way of the whole person, there is required a response by the whole person. Having touched and having been touched, what will we now do?

Are we not accountable for what we experience? What will we do in response? Is a reciprocal response not due? Or do we count the experience like one more tourist attraction on a road trip? - Snap a picture or two, buy a souvenir and be on our way. Do we take it in like we might in the sighting of a falling star? - A moment of surprise followed by a wish and soon forget.

Our God is making himself known to us. There is a move in our direction. Will we believe and respond? We must be responsive and obedient. Our experience in God should be accountable to the written Word but we must be attentive to the living Word as God reaches for us in love today. To know his love is to experience his love, to be affected by his love. Our experience drives who we are, what we know and what we do. And there is a dynamic quality to all this which makes it more like an electrical storm than a controlled experiment.

In all of this God will endeavor to break free from our presuppositions. Rather, he would free us from presuppositions. The predictability we demand puts us in a box more than it confines the Almighty. It restrains our experience of him. Do you sense a call to the unfamiliar? Do you sense his deep calling you deeper? Have you noticed he is waiting on you? Will you respond? And if so, will you risk unguarded openness and vulnerability?

Can one be invulnerable and in deep love relationship simultaneously? Can one know without really being known? Is this what Genesis is getting at describing Adam as naked before the fall? He walked with God in complete vulnerability. It was after his sin that Adam covers himself. The relationship was broken. What if Adam had not covered himself? What if we did not cover ourselves, i.e., we did not come to God with less than complete vulnerability? To reduce our relationship with God to a mere act of reason is to cover ourselves. Eventually, something has to die for us to remain covered. Instead of really pursuing God, Adam was found hiding. If we pursue God without vulnerable openness before him, in actuality, are we not hiding as well? In our well-intentioned academic or reason-based pursuit of the Holy One, is God not responding, “Where are you?"

Relationship vs. Research - Part 4

We take our religion with clear-cut codes and measures. We like religion that quickly satisfies every question with easy answers and neatly reduces every issue, question and debate to a fixed position. We would have religion that requires little thought or deliberation. We don’t want the responsibility of a living, breathing, unpredictable relationship on our hands that challenges our theological equations.

Religion is managed, controlled and predictable; especially religion with lots of regulations. Is this is why we often choose regulations over relationship? We know what to expect with regulations – no surprises. Religion affords predictable patterns, uniforms and uniformity. Relationship allows for the unanticipated. A religion of regulations accommodates death. Relationship makes room for life.

Why did some early Christians seem to have difficulty letting go of the Law? We tend to have the idea they were seeking to be delivered from the oppressiveness of the Law, but in part they clung to it. Why? - Predictability with no surprise seems to make no demands on faith.

Armed with a list of regulations, I can read the Bible and pray in private. I just need to get the information in my head. It is mere cerebral engagement. But when these black and white, clear-cut, plainly written codes are joined with God’s intent to put his Law on our hearts (e.g., Heb. 8:10), there is a new dynamic - enters ambiguity and the need for discernment, which requires something more than private Bible study. Now faith is required for discerning truth. And messier still, relationship is required – relationship not only with God, but with others who too have hearts of writ.

Discerning truth requires more than rigid adherence to regulation. Now faith is necessary for truth to be known. Now relationship is required, with dialogue, fellowship, praying and reading with others for discernment. If the Law is written on hearts of flesh, then hearts of flesh must be known to know the Law. Is God saying that our relationship with him is affected by our relationship with others?

Give me a plain list of regulations and codes, be they ever so difficult, and I will not have to be in close relationship with others. It becomes my Bible and my prayer time. It will be like the words of a country song, “Me and Jesus got our own thing goin’. We don’t need anybody to tell us what it’s all about.”

With hearts of flesh as a medium, relationship and dialogue are required. Now, for example, as a North American male, I must begin to see through the eyes of North American females to hear the Word of the Lord. Have I heard the Word of the Lord if I don’t know how the poor see and read the Word? Now dialogue is required with Latin American saints and believers in West African, and the church in Indonesia. I must be in relationship with believers in denominations apart from my own. You and I have no monopoly on truth. God has so arranged things, that in order to be well rounded in his Word, we must do so by way of relationship.