newworship blog

Fear and Mystery Part 4

Sorry, it has been so long since my last entry!

To follow up my our last entry on God's creation I wanted to talk a bit more about it, but stay a little closer to home.

Some of the most profoundly beautiful landscape on our little planet are it's mountains. There is something about these brutal peaks that drives us tp explore them. And when we look at the highest of them we find out how dangerous they really are. The highest peaks on our planet are literally littered with the bodies of those who tried to climb them.

We know more about the moon than we know about the deepest parts of our oceans. These are places where the pressure is so great it will crush an ordinary submarine like an aluminum can. It an exremely dangerous environment for us to explore. Yet, we do it all the time. And, interestingly enough, every time we endeavor the to deepest parts of it we discover new species of animal designed by the Creator to flourish in such a cold, dark, hostile dwelling place.

As much can be said of the Rainforests of equatorial Africa and South America. There are still virgin jungles, yet untouched by the hand of man. And as we explore them a bit more we find, just like the deepest parts of the sea, new species of animal every time!

Even on our own home planet we find the vast beauty, mystery, danger, creativity, variety and undiscovered praise of creation that speaks of the character of our wild, untamed God.

More next time!

Fear and Mystery - Part 3

Scripture says that "the heavens are telling the glory of God." It says that somehow the work of His hands describes His majesty and character. Romans 1:20 says "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

So, it is clear that we are to understand something of God's character from His creation. His artwork reveals His nature at least in part.

Consider the vastness of the universe and how beautiful and dangerous it is. Think about how hostile the great majority of His creation is to our fragile little human bodies. Think about how He carved out this little, delicately balanced corner of creation to be a place where our kind of life could be possible. Think about the care He took in making a world where we could flourish when the mere exposure to most of His art would kill us.

Ours is a very average star amongst billions of other stars in a very average galaxy amongst billions of other galaxies each containing their own billions of stars.

The closest star in our own galaxy to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.5 light years away. Light travels at 186.000 miles a second. A light year is 5.88 trillions miles. So the CLOSEST neighboring star we have is 26,460,000,000,000 miles away (26.46 trillion).

Even at that speed it takes light 8 minutes to travel from our own sun to Earth. Yet the fury and intensity of it's energy dominates our lives. It expends the impact of a million atomic bombs exploding on it's surface every second. We live and die by it's light and heat. Yet it is just one average star amongst trillions of other stars in God's inconceivably vast creation.

God of Wonders beyond our galaxy.

More on this next time.

Fear and Mystery part 2

I have a 100 pound black, female Lab. She is amazing! She is absolutely faithful to me. She's there to comfort me when I'm down. When it's cold, she loves to curl up with me on the couch and keep me warm. She's always happy to party with me when I'm in a good mood. I get a parade from her every day when I get home from work. She also knows when to leave me alone, most of the time. And those times when I don't want anything to do with her or she is bugging me, I can just as easily send her away. Only to call her back when I want her. She is a magnificent animal.

The sad thing is that many of us relate to God like that. We want a comforting, gentle, fun, happy God who will be there for us when we need Him and leave us alone when we are not in the mood. This is a God that we understand; a God that we can wrap our minds around.

I realize that the metaphor breaks down if we take it too far. But, the point is God isn't our tamed animal who exists to serve us and our plans. He isn't domesticated like a subservient animal or a genie in a bottle. You see, we domesticate animals so that we can control them, so they can serve our purposes. God is anything but domesticated.

Walter Bruggerman describes God as "wild, dangerous, unfettered and free." He is beyond our control. He is loving, and comforting and gentle and kind. But He is far more than that. He is a lot of things that are beyond our comprehension. Things that may even frighten us.

God is not our lap dog.

More on this later.

Fear and Mystery

It seems that in much of the evangelical church we have settled on a certain number of characteristics that we attribute to God and are comfortable with. We love to speak of God's love, grace, gentleness, goodness and comfort. Those ideas are amazing and truly worthy of our worship. I love Him for all of those facets of His character. We are used to relating to God on that level most of the time. Just look at our worship music. But how often do we worship God for the characteristics we don't really understand? It's as if we have settled on a certain size and shape for the Creator of the Universe. But, this is certainly not the complete picture as He has revealed Himself through scripture.

I am sure there are a number of reasons for this. Maybe it's birthed partially as a reaction to the distant, impersonal God of judgement that seemed to dominate the historic pre-reformation church. Maybe it is a modern, enlightenment thinking persons discomfort with the idea of a mysterious, dangerous God who simply will not fit into the box we have systematically prescribed for Him. Either way, we are missing out on acknowledging and worshiping Him for ALL that He is; not just the facets of His character that we understand and are comfortable with, but for those characteristics that we can't wrap our heads around and that we don't undestand.

We will try and unpack this idea and it's implications in small pieces for the next couple of weeks. I hope you will join me in the journey.