In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. -- John 1: 1 & 14a
I have this huge desire which has often propelled me forward towards really knowing God. I don’t want quaint metaphors, and I don’t want someone to ramble off to me ambiguous lines of metaphysical thought. I want straight understanding, the kind I can get from a physics book, and I can’t have it, and it pains me to no end. I’ve spent nights ripping pages out of Bibles in frustration at it all. I’ve wept alone at two in the morning because I’ve felt absolutely alone from my searching.
I’ve had these moments where I can stare out at some natural event and think, “This must be evidence,” but those moments are far more often eclipsed by the mundane routine which affords me little hope that my eyes will be open to see the glory of God revealed in a way so that I can say in this moment I saw God’s awesomeness fully represented.
I find that is mostly the problem, though. I’m searching for astrological signs, cosmic wonders, and events like the parting of seas as evidence for my creator, and while these may allude to God, they grant me no certainty of him.
Then I fix my gaze upon Jesus the Christ, the Word made flesh. Jesus is an enigma to me. How can it be that the Star Maker chooses the impoverished and the outcasts as dining partners? As C.S. Lewis points out, this is no story that any of us could have invented. It is the truest thing we have ever heard and the most fantastic, and in it the apex of God’s creative work is realized, and in it the vision of God which I have long sought is revealed.
I seek amongst the stars one that is fixed as a guide. If only I could remember that even the stars exist because of God’s activity. I must look beyond the stars, beyond sunsets, beyond babies, beyond all the wonders of the universe to the Activity which makes them possible, The Word.
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3 comments:
Encouraging. Thanks, David.
Yeah, even though the answer seems obvious, things point back to Jesus. I have been frustrated in my relationship with God over the same issue of not knowing what I could hold onto and point to and say "this is my evidence of God's existence." I've pored over my experiences with Him and analyzed everything to the point where I couldn't trust anything I'd believed as evidence anymore. It's only been recently that I've realized, very simply, that Jesus is my point of faith. He's the one that I gain access to the Father with. He is the expressed image of God, God stepping into our world. I can remember a time very recently where I was frustrated with God about something in my life that didn't go right. Even though it seems crazy now, I consequently became angry with Jesus, but I still believed in God. I would search over the bible and try and try to pray to God, no intimacy, no fellowship with Him. It felt like my prayers hit the ceiling or something closer like the air in my throat. We see the Father in Jesus and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus. When I remembered this, Who He was, I remembered the point of my faith, what being a Christian was all about. Even it seems corny and trite, it's true and deserves to be said and emphasized and pointed out that it's not just something that we say because we feel religiously compelled to, because it seems like the right thing to say, because we're mindless religo-bots, but Jesus is who and what true life is all about. "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night." Ps 1.1-2 [NIV] Jesus is the word, the fulfillment of the law, so I can imagine this scripture to also be read "...but his delight is in Jesus and on Jesus he meditates day and night." The rest of that Psalm read in that light takes on much more meaning to me.
Well said Exhortation and thought provoking. How I long to see, hear, taste, feel, smell Jesus in all of life- a task I am unfit and unworthy to trek. Only with Jesus may I/we even begin such a journey. In unsuspecting moments, in unlikely places-I/we see Him! And just about the time it begins to sink in- "I'm w/ Jesus"- He vanishes, not so much vanishes, but my ability to see him becomes hazy & blurred.
Thanks for your poetic reminder that God through The Word Incarnate, Jesus- is not hiding from us, we only need to seek to find the divine, and God rewards those that diligently seek the Creator with God's-self (Hebrews 11:6).
May we do this together.
Also, thanks for your testimony Michael (that is you Michael- Goodknight- isn't it??)
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