April 6, 2011

God, You are huge and beautiful and so terrifying. You give us a tiny taste of Yourself before you vanish from our sight, and it is all we can take. How can an inanimate object know what it is like to be alive? How can a chair begin to imagine what it’s like to speak? to hear? to have its being? How much lower are we than a chair, and how much greater are you than a human.

Your thoughts and actions are greater than mine. You are greater than I. How could I begin to imagine You? The mysteries You give me prove this impossible. Who are you? You have grace on some, but not others; yet You give us the choice. How does that work? Your mysteries captivate our minds as we sit together to ponder You. We come to learn of You and find ourselves unequal to the task; You are so wonderful.

We ponder and struggle and wonder who You are, yet how can we know? You have shown us the extent of our wisdom, and it is not vast. You have shown us where our thoughts reach their heights and we have found it to be far short of where your thoughts begin. The mystery captivates us. We cannot understand. Still You tell us. You tell us repeatedly though there may not be hope of our understanding. You tell us again and again. You whisper the truth though we turn each time to forget. You allow Your simplest thoughts to fall to us, to Your creation. We struggle. We struggle in Your smallest ideas. We struggle in Your simplest thoughts.

We fight for clarity when we should be still. We should be still before You. We should rejoice knowing You have chosen to shine a single weak beam of light into our darkness.

Who else would do such things? Who else would care to reveal Himself to dimwitted creatures of darkness? Who else would care so much to be known by beings he needs not? Only God. Who would care enough to dimly illuminate our darkness? And our darkness is indeed so dark that the dim light of Your mysteries shining in us blind us. We cannot see after You have cared so much to look in our direction. Everything becomes dark after You. Everything loses value, and we want nothing else.

What do we do with a terrifying God? I will put my hope in Him. He is trustworthy. Others have known it, so I will believe. I love You, Jesus.

So what do I do with a terrifying God? What do I do with a God who is alive and powerful? What do I do with someone so big and so much more alive than I? Someone who created everything I see and know? Someone who thinks His lowest thoughts so high that their dull light blinds me?

I worship Him. How could He love me? How could he have so much love and grace to even allow me to know so little about Him? I love Him. He is. I am not. Yet He cares about me.

How do I know He cares for me? He has had the grace to allow me to know of Him. He has unveiled the corner of my heart and penetrated. He has cared. He has heard my prayers. He has listened to the cry from the dust. He has acted. When afraid, I have called to Him and he has heard me from His most Holy Hill.

Lord, when I called to you in my distress, You heard me. You awakened me from my fear by Your love. Why should You love me?

I shall hope in You, my Love. You have shown me grace. You have opened my eyes so I may see You.

What would happen if You truly unveiled our hearts? What would happen if You fully revealed Yourself? If we are blinded by a mere glimpse of a muddied reflection of You, what would happen if You showed us who You are? Only by Your never changing grace would we have a hope of life. It has happened before. You have shown Yourself to a creature. he lived only by Your grace.