It's so depressing sometimes. We have one of the biggest theological libraries on this side of the country, and yet theology is just us guessing at what God is all about. Theology is our attempt to understandand that which cannot be understood, our attempt to define the undefineable, our attempt to describe the indescribable, our pitiful attempts to box in a Being who exists outside time and space. We think we have it penned down but there's an ocean and we've just dipped our finger in the water.
If my goal here is to learn all I can about God, that is a noble goal. But I know that it's almost futile. I will never know what it's all about. Every time I think I've got it all figured out, I need to remember that I've just dipped the tip of my finger into the ocean.
It's very humbling, it really is. We cannot understand God. We can know Him, but we can never really know all there is ABOUT Him. My mind is scientific. I want to know what it's all about. I want to have it pegged down. But I can't. Not with God. None of us can. I must be content to simply follow His Son, Christ, and take Jesus' word on the nature of God. I need to understand that God's love is indescribable, His mercy is indescribable, His grace is indescribable, HE is indescribable. They're indescribable--so why waste time trying to peg them down?
God doesn't tell me to learn all I can about Him. He doesn't tell me to try and figure Him all out. He simply tells me to "do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). This is what He desires of me.
**Is studying spirituality, God and the Christian faith bad, then? Not at all! I believe it's to be seen as an act of worship. It's when our goal becomes to know ABOUT God rather than to KNOW God that things get out-of-hand.
If my goal here is to learn all I can about God, that is a noble goal. But I know that it's almost futile. I will never know what it's all about. Every time I think I've got it all figured out, I need to remember that I've just dipped the tip of my finger into the ocean.
It's very humbling, it really is. We cannot understand God. We can know Him, but we can never really know all there is ABOUT Him. My mind is scientific. I want to know what it's all about. I want to have it pegged down. But I can't. Not with God. None of us can. I must be content to simply follow His Son, Christ, and take Jesus' word on the nature of God. I need to understand that God's love is indescribable, His mercy is indescribable, His grace is indescribable, HE is indescribable. They're indescribable--so why waste time trying to peg them down?
God doesn't tell me to learn all I can about Him. He doesn't tell me to try and figure Him all out. He simply tells me to "do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). This is what He desires of me.
**Is studying spirituality, God and the Christian faith bad, then? Not at all! I believe it's to be seen as an act of worship. It's when our goal becomes to know ABOUT God rather than to KNOW God that things get out-of-hand.
1 comment:
Good word, man! When we become more concerned with understanding God in place of knowing Him we move from following Him to critiquing those who are trying to follow Him. My hope is that if I never understand another aspect of who He is that I'll still faithfully follow wherever He leads. Hope you see His Kingdom around you today.
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