God’s Humor

This I think is some insight into the humor of our God: that He would create in us the ability to sense His permeating Being and to respond with the silence of wonder and awe, yet all our attempts at description fall woefully short, exposing even the wisest and most eloquent as a foolish imbecile. His joy is within our reach, but beyond our grasp. For, the cage must be greater than the captive; and even our greatest boxes are fashioned out of the finite.

He shows us such joy that we cannot explain, and that a mere fraction of what awaits. This is the joy in which we live: the greatest build to the ultimate punch line.

Creation’s Song

Perhaps it is due to my small-mindedness (His ways are higher [Isa 55:9]) that I cannot see the benefit of a self referential symphony. But, I find it very easy to see creation more as a love song.

For the one I love, I would expend time and effort to curate what is beautiful and express my adoration. And, God is Three and One, Three in One. So, it seems just as right to think of His creating things for His own glory [Psa 145:10, 119:89-91] as for Their enjoyment (They being His other Trinitarian self).

When I think of the entirety of creation as a love song forced out of tune by wayward notes rather than an experiment thrown into paradox by its subjects, I am called into awe rather than doubt.

All my questions bring His goodness into focus rather than obscurity:

Could our Father be so good that, in His love for His Son and Spirit, He would work together to create an even greater capacity for love? Could the Son be so good that He would live and die and live again to redeem the beauty that we have threatened? Could the Father be so loving that He would allow His Son to sacrifice Himself to save the song? Could the Spirit be so good that She would be with Them through it all and with us even after we rejected our Savior? Could there be a God so good that, even in our failures, he would make a way for us to be a part of His gift to His Love?

Yes.

This we see, but dimly as through a cloudy mirror. This we know, but partly as our thoughts are lower than the Highest. We have only just begun to experience the love song of the eternal new creation [1Cor 13:12, 2:9].

Enough

God is good. He is so good. If I don’t believe this, if I don’t hold this in my heart, then I am destitute and have nothing. For, God is good. He is my everything.

If my life is marked by accomplishment; if, at the end, all of my efforts have been fruitful and successful, and I leave a great inheritance for my loved ones; if my friends and family cherish me and, having lived a long and healthy life, I die at a ripe old age in peaceful sleep; if God, in His sovereignty, chooses to give me everything I could wish for, but does not give Himself… then I shall call myself cursed and hopeless. For God is everything.

Conversely, if my life is marked by tragedy; if, at the end, all of my efforts appear fruitless and wasted, and I have nothing to claim or bestow; if my friends and family abandon me and, succumbing to a debilitating disease, I die at a young age; if God, in His sovereignty, chooses to give me nothing at all, but does give Himself… then I shall call myself blessed beyond all measure. For, God is everything.

This is what brings me through trouble and heartache. This is what colors my understanding and response. This is why I can still rejoice when pain comes. I rest in this: that Jesus has already given me everything by giving Himself. Anything additional is enjoyable, but fleeting.

He is enough.

Stories

I’m starting to think that every story is ultimately about Jesus. I don’t know when the thought first occurred to me, but I can’t shake it. It’s everywhere.

Watch any romantic comedy (if you have the stomach for it) and you’ll see the same basic principle arise.

The protagonist, Nick (or some equally-common name), meets the unlikely romantic interest, Kaitey (or Jenniffer maybe) one day at the local laundromat. Protagonick is all kinds of screwy, but he didn’t really care about it until he fell in love with Kaitiffer (Surprise!) over the first 30 minutes of the movie. At first they didn’t get along, but they slowly start to see each other in perfect lighting until the sexual tension builds up enough for the movie to climax in some sort of massive relationship failure that works out in the end because Katiffer never actually loved Lamebert or whoever. Kaitiffer loved Protagonick the whole time… (Or something moving and melodramatic.)

When that ironically old-school pop song from the previous decade plays over the marriage montage sequence, you just know that they’ll live happily ever after; The world is made of unicorns with cotton candy manes, and all the character flaws have dissolved into chemistry.

Trustfall

After a hectic semester filled with tests and projects and the added stresses of looming unemployment, and after almost four months of denying the depressing embrace of of unemployment by job searching, I have failed. Though I found opportunities at three large, graduate-welcoming firms, though I was interviewed and initially welcomed by the HR reps of those three firms, I was passed over three times.

“We’ve decided to pursue other candidates.”

“We will not be extending a job offer at this time.”

“We will keep your resume on file just in case [a miracle happens].”

“[It's not you, it's us.]“

“[We're just not interested.]“

Job hunting is very difficult, stressful, and draining. It’s difficult hearing or reading those words of rejection and maintaining optimism that somewhere, there’s something to find. It’s stressful worrying about the first impressions and the professional expressions and wondering if there’s some little extra push that can make it happen next time. It’s draining to be mostly ignored and sometimes addressed, then rejected.

The hardest thing is finding purpose. Had I been required to look for it, I would have failed at that too. Luckily for me, Purpose went with me through the troughs. Thank God.

If I hadn’t already known that my worth, rather than depending on my income sources, depended only on my relationship with the Source of Life, I don’t know how I would have faced each day. Because, when you’re trying to carry the burden of failure, it’s really hard to wake up excited. Failure makes your whole frame heavier. Even your frame of mind. I tried to carry that failure for a while; it wore me out.

Two weeks ago, I finally stopped carrying the failure that had been building since I first glimpsed my insecure future. That was difficult…

Sometimes, I hear a person say, “You just need to drop it.” But, problems aren’t bowling balls. You can’t “drop it”. People don’t spot problems and pick them up to tote around. Problems don’t have enough thingness… and yet, they’re surprisingly weighty.

But my God is very good.

By His grace, I was able to accept my situation and find contentment in His goodness alone [Phl 4:12-13]. Then He revealed some of His humor, which is based in the joy of truth and provision rather than the embarrassment of failure and fragility as man’s humor tends to be.

Out of the blue, I got a call from the FAA about a job that is in my preferred field (Civil Engineering – Transportation), that is located where I’ve been hoping to land (Dallas/Fort Worth), that pays a very competitive starting salary, and that makes use of my educational qualifications. I never postured myself for this job because I never even knew about it before the call. My resume was hunted from the UT College of Engineering’s Career Assistance Center. The first call turned into a formal application, then a phone interview, then a job offer. It turns out that the job to get was the one I did nothing to earn. Talk about divine favor…

So, the next chapter of my life begins with God’s sovereignty and favor.

Art: Reflected Truth

Art produced for hungry souls needs the truth to satiate.

Content trumps the medium…serves as well from each cook’s plate:

painter’s canvas, singer’s breath, dancer’s frame, or writer’s text…

brokenness always the best, always what we ask for next,

is what we’ve come to expect: pain described. Reflected truth:

masked inside of mirror slides, wetting cheeks, failing to soothe;

heaving in the heavy sighs tumbling out of lungs so dry;

bled from every heart that asks, “Is sincerity uncouth?”

 

If it is, then just for now; change is not so far away.

Fix your eyes on what’s ahead: horizon proving what was said.

 

Sounding trumpets will proclaim the end of our inglorious ways,

He that is I AM redeeming claim on past and future days.

Total Truth Personified will usher in eternity,

“Start and End” justifying from means embraced meaninglessly.

Nakedness will disappear.  With it, art that feeds the need of

calming nonexistent fear, from which we all will have been freed.

We’ll exchange swords for plowshares, dim mirrors for eyes that can see.

Hungry souls will join in feast and increase, making famine cease.

 

In that day, we’ll shout the name of Jesus Christ. His death He gave

that we’d gain The Way to be saved.  In Him, we will live and live!

Evermore, the Lord we’ll laud.  Joy reborn in those elected

children of the living God: truth radiant, not reflected.

 

-Curtis Hefner

On The Beginning

I tend to study the New Testament.  It grabs my focus.  It’s not that I dislike the Old Testament.  I’m just totally captured by the person of Jesus.  And, He’s explicitly present in the New Testament.  Granted, since He’s in everything, I guess He’s in the Old Testament just as much.  However, it is certainly easier for me to sense His presence in the New Testament writings.

Since I was brought up in the church, and since I learned about most of the drama of the Old Testament on a felt board in Sunday school, I don’t usually feel like I’m missing much.  And, though my predilections may change in the future, I read and write and live in the present.

All that to say this: though I am regularly shocked by the explicitness of pre-virgin-birth Biblical history, though I am encouraged by the fact that a good God has chosen and will continue to choose to love our radically flawed and selfish humanity, I usually open my Bible looking for something that applies today and can be digested in a matter of minutes, not hours.  I like to spend the hours being closed and comfortable or becoming more skilled at something that doesn’t help others much or consuming the efforts of the others that I’m not helping.  Because, on my own, I am radically flawed and desperately selfish.

I am radically flawed and desperately selfish and hopelessly caught up in the incredible magnitude of God’s grace that stems from His love.  Though I’ve always been aware of the idea of His grace, I can’t say that I’ve ever wholly admitted its necessity in my life.  Theoretically, having heard grace-related “Christianese” phrases so many times that they’ve lost almost all meaning, I’ve always acknowledged the idea of human wickedness.  But, theory and understanding are two very different relational concepts.  Possessing food is far different from digesting food.  Lately though, I feel like I’ve gained a more thorough understanding of just how hopeless I am on my own.  I try to satiate my inadequacies with narcissism and excess and opulence.  I try to be impressive to myself and to others.  I feed my insatiably hungry pride.  Even though I know what is right, have been taught what is right by the wonderful people who have surrounded me for most of my life, I do what is easy.  Sometimes, easy is doing the wrong thing.  Other times, easy is doing nothing when a difficult beauty is within reach.

The Power of Speech

Creations

Our story, the story of humanity, begins with speech.

First, there is just God; God and nothing else.  Then, He speaks.  He speaks with awesome power, and causes things to form and consist and exist[1].  His words are the words of creation.  His words hold things together.  His words are the Word.  And, this Word is life.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made.”[2] “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  And, He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”[3]

Just Thoughts

I think there’s more to explore in this idea, but I thought I’d share it anyway.

Regarding salvation, I’ve faced a great deal of mental difficulty in trying to resolve the dichotomy that is described in the “free will vs. predestination” argument.

If we’re free, how can God know what we’re going to do?  But, if he doesn’t know, then He’s not really omniscient. He is omniscient… Is predestination (the theory of God’s having hand-picked certain people to follow Him before creation even happened) the only option?

Chicken Nuggets

Sometimes, I wonder if God is just banging His head on the fridge when He thinks about me. I wonder because, for all of my witticisms and efforts to charm and banter with ease, I get spiritually retarded every once in a while. In fact, most of the time that I’m just not getting it, I don’t even realize how off I am.

I heard Donald Miller give an interesting message on Father’s Day ’09 [Yes, I realize it was 7 months ago... see above]. Actually, I don’t remember much of it. But, the fact that I’m bringing it up now means that what I do remember must have been interesting. He talked about this time he had dinner with a very nice family. In this family was a 4 year old girl who had just discovered the wonder that is the chicken nugget.