Blessed Beyond Measure
Deep Thoughts
To bail or not to bail – that is not the question.
Sep 25th
I didn’t get a chance to watch the President make the case for more Socialism last night, but I have heard all I need to hear about it.
There are so many things that could be said about this predicament we find ourselves in. I wrote this post ten different ways in my head while washing my glorious naked body this morning, and as the shampoo drained away so did my fear. No one likes a no-it-all so I won’t pound the drum that I told you so, even though I did. No, instead of yelling to the wind about government education, Ron Paul, the Constitution, taxation without representation, I am going to try and connect the dots to what is really going on in all of this.
There is a foundational premise that we must understand about the world. That premise is that God is good and He has an enemy that is not. God loves us and the Devil hates us. This is key, every bit of knowledge comes from this foundation and is the magnetic north that must be established.
Point #1: Only God makes stuff.
This is rather self evident, but it is a foundational truth. God is the creator, nothing else can be that, He is it. He is the beginning and the end, the big cheese, big daddy, the man, and woman, but let’s not go there. 
Point #2: Every created thing wants to be God.
God is so amazingly awesome that everything wants to be like Him. It is programmed into our DNA, we are created in the image of God to be like Him, to rule and reign, to create and multiply, to love and be loved. We really really want to be worshiped and praised and adored and put on a pedestal and all that comes with being an awesome God. Even the angels, as glorious as they are, want to be like God – He is just that amazing.
Point #3: God gives people the choice to love.
One of the most amazing feelings is when you realize your mate loves you. Another person has chosen us, out of all the other people on the planet, they said you are the guy or the gal for me. Nothing else satisfies our need to be loved like finding someone that loves us for who we are. The same is true for God. He could have made us love Him, but He hides himself for us to discover and it brings Him great joy when we choose Him. The fact that we must discover His nature all on our own makes it that much sweeter when we do. If we were to see Him in heaven in all His awesomeness, it wouldn’t be as sweet as falling in love with Him from His still small voice.
Point #3: The Devil hates that God get’s all the glory.
I really don’t need to elaborate on this. All we have to do is look into our own lives and see we are the same way – selfish.
Point #4: The ultimate goal of the Devil is to take what God made.
Since only God can make stuff, the Devil has been working overtime to steal what he made and claim it as his own. God really loves what he makes. Obsessively, painfully, loves everything He makes. The heartache we feel when we lose someone or something we love is an attribute of the heart of God. Multiply that by billions and you can see why the Devil is so fundamentally evil. His one goal is to destroy the heart of God and everything that brings God glory because he wants it.
Point #5: Money and currency are ways to steal Gods stuff.
Things that God makes have value or wealth because they have been created. Land, livestock, precious metals, oil, gas, people are all wealth. They have actual value outside of any currency because they are “God stuff”.
Money has no actual value. It only represents wealth and only sometimes is it backed by wealth. Our currency used to be backed by gold and silver, but not any more. Now, it is only currency, an ingeniously fabricated tool to transfer wealth without actually requiring wealth.
Our current “financial crisis” is a ruse, a lie, a trick. We have been sold into slavery to money. The top prize for the devil is people as God places a value on them above Himself. I wish I could really get a hold of that in my spirit, deep down when times get tough, but it is the message of the cross. If the Devil can make people exchange their “God wealth” for money, he has effectively stolen their wealth from God. If we exhaust our lives pursuing money, the devil gets the reward or value of our life. We literally exchange the wealth God placed in us for paper.
If you take a close look at money you will see Egyptian symbols. Call me crazy, but I think that is neat. The history of Israel and Egypt has a striking similarity to the history of all mankind. We may not be making bricks but we are certainly slaves none the less. If you don’t think so, what would happen if you stopped working and paying taxes on your home? We are owned brothers and sisters. Our task masters are government and banks and they are just as cruel as an Egyptian Pharaoh. In a matter of seconds, your entire life is summed up and assigned a value. They call it a credit score.
The most glaringly sadistic example of the Devil stealing God’s stuff is the abortion industry. We can now literally place a monetary value on human life in 2008 by figuring out the fees charged to end a human life. There is much I could say about this, but my heart can’t bear to think about it.
Point #6: There is hope – God loves to set the captives free.
Help is on the way, and it sure isn’t a power grab bail out package from the Republican or Democratic party. If there is one thing I know, one thing that resonates deep within my soul, it is that God loves His stuff. He hears the cry of His people and has promised to never leave or forsake us. Our only problem right now is us. We could fix this country overnight if we turned back to God. If we could only stop giving ourselves over to the spirit of money and put our trust in God. If we could step back and see that the people in power do not have answers, they made the problem, God is the answer.
Our currency says “In God we Trust”, and even though the God they are thinking about is money, we don’t have to go along. We can trust in God Almighty – the God of Abraham, the Father of Jesus Christ, the maker of Heaven and Earth.
All we need to do is ask.
Point #7: God is for us.
Who can be against?
Wife and Mom
Sep 9th
I remember taking this picture in 1992 of my new wife and new baby.
I borrowed a friends SLR camera, bummed some black and white film, and took a few shots for a college photography assignment. We didn’t even have money for photo paper so I developed this print on lithography film I found at school.
Times were tough, but we made it through.
Fast forward 16 years and much has changed – but much has also stayed the same. We find ourselves once again in the throws of late night feedings, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, tight finances, unspeakable joy, and emotions so intense they can sneak up on you and take your breath away.
I walked into the living room this morning to see the wife of my youth and our beautiful daughter asleep together on the couch. They were nestled together and even though I wanted to take a picture, the moment would not allow the interruption.
Time stood still and backed up 16 years.
I was once again looking down on a familiar scene, one that has been replayed millions of times in millions of families in millions of homes.
The scene of a wife becoming a mom.
The unexpected merger of past and future, lover and mother, individual and family, experience and uncertainty. The balance of life and death locked in flesh and blood as gentle as a newborn, yet lethal as a lioness.
Somewhere in the morning light, amidst the rise and fall of breaths as mother holds baby inches away from the life they once knew, a transformation takes place. The wife becomes mother and steps into a role of preparing the next generation to become the same. She pushes past herself, denying, submitting, sacrificing, laying everything down to make her ceiling the newborns floor.
For it is in this place of sacrifice, determination, love, that she becomes more than just a wife, more than just a friend, more than just a lover, she becomes so much more. She grows and transforms and starts a new existence, a new journey, a transformation as a caterpillar gaining wings.
She has been added to. She is more than what she was before. She is a wife and mom and her husband stands in awe of the beauty of her.
Time
Sep 2nd
Time has always fascinated me. I spent a great deal of it over the years trying to figure out how, and more importantly where, time actually goes. I have resigned myself to the conclusion that time, like many other things in this life, is a mystery.
An even greater mystery is how we formulate questions that have no answers? That alone is reason enough for me to discount evolution as an explanation for this whole thing we call life.
When an object moves from one spot to the next, say a pen on a desk, where did the pen go that used to occupy the original spot? Experience tells me that the pen simply moved, but if I were able to re-wind time, say take a snapshot of time, the pen would be in the original spot, physically in that spot. Where do all the snapshots of the pen go? How can something be in one place at a specific point in time and yet be somewhere else a fraction later?
One theory is that matter is instantaneously assembling and nothing is “real” only assembled for a moment. As I understand the theory, the whole universe and everything in it is being created as we move through it and once we move past that point in time everything is dismantled instantaneously behind.
Interesting.
I like that idea as it helps explain the mechanics of faith and how things that seem impossible can be made possible in time. If we are constantly being re-written so to speak, it makes sense that the author can change us along the way. Trying to get my head around the rest of the theory makes my brain hurt, so I will be content with my questions for now, even though someday I would like an answer.
I like having answers and perhaps that is why writing interests me. Even though I am a poor wordsmith there is something elemental and satisfying about creating with words. To the best of my knowledge the string of words assembled above have never been arranged in that way before. The images, voices, emotion, and tone generated in my mind and the mind of the reader actually create something. Words become real, instantaneously having life breathed into them, as communication happens and you hear what I was thinking.
Very interesting.
To me, this is the essence of creativity. To take something that was a fragrance in my mind, breathe life into it, clothe it with meaning, and set it into a world only I see within is divine.
It is written that we are created in the image or likeness of God. My particular understanding of this scripture is that “His image” is not so much about arms and legs as it is the desire to create.
We get to father (and mother), like our heavenly Father.
Yesterday, my wife and I were talking with the kids about baby and pregnancy and wondering aloud if Emily would still have been Emily a month or year earlier or later in time. That, like time itself, is a mystery that can never be answered this side of eternity.
I do know that once she was conceived, Emily had always been Emily. We knew her immediately, like a character developed in a story and she is exactly like we imagined she would be.
She just fits in perfectly for this place and time and I can’t imagine my story without her, my wife, or her brother and sister in it.
Dear Brain
Jul 22nd
I like you, really I do. Even though we have never met, and the only time I have smelled you is when I hit my head running backwards in gym class, I still like you becuase as far as I can tell everything I think I am is contained in you.
You are like my ziplock sandwich bag holding my peanut butter sandwich. Just don’t put oranges in another ziplock sandwich bag in a confined space becuase even though ziplock corp. claims the bags are airtight, it is impossible to miss the tangy acidic bite of orange bread and orange laced Jiff. Or Peter Pan. Or that huge tub you get when you are on welfare.
You are my brain, and I have learned to love you. Mostly because you control my emotions, so you pretty much force me to love you, you sick Stockholm Syndrome lover you.
I hate you brain. I take that back, I didn’t mean for my fingers to do that, sorry. jerk.
No, no, I meant jerk, like the rub you put on beef.
I love you brain.
Where would I be without you?
Probably in West Virginia, but I kid, I kid!
I would most likely be in North Dakota actually, because you can roam around there without a brain and be pretty much okay unless you run into Bison.
Well, not actually “run into them”, that would be weird, seeing as how they are much faster and would most likely not just stand there waiting for your drooling face to slap them in the flank.
You are my brain.
You are big an gray and keep me awake at night moving memories and making things appear that I have never seen.
You are my brain and I am scared of you.
Really, horribly, peeing my pants scared of you.
Big guy.
Filler of head.
Backer of eyes.
Producer of ear wax.
Skull candy.
You are my brain.
I am glad we had this talk.
When Heaven Invades
Apr 17th
For as long as I can remember, Heaven has always been a place. When I think about it I look up assuming it must be out there. I still have that pull when contemplating Heaven, the draw that it is somewhere up and out of this world.
Exactly where, out there, I can’t be certain, but I think someone should equip people with tracking devices that measure where they look when they think of Heaven. Wouldn’t it be interesting if everyone looked to the same point in space?
The point is, I think most will agree that Heaven is outside this sphere we spin on called earth. Even those that seek Heaven within eventually escape the grips of the earthly realm to enlightenment.
For far too long I used to think that Heaven was the reason for this whole earthly experience. That God took us from Heaven, deposited us in earthly bodies to experience life as a mortal, and if we passed “the test” we got to crawl back up to Heaven. Basically, we lived in some spherical petri dish as God watched from above with the heavenly hosts taking bets on who would make it.
Admittedly, that is quite an irreverent thought, but that was my understanding and from the lives of everyone around me that professed faith in God, was a perfectly logical conclusion. Most people I meet live a life in God that resembles that sentiment. A life constantly anchored from the perspective of just getting through.
The thing is, I don’t buy it.
It doesn’t make any sense that we are sent to the earth just to struggle through to the sweet by and by. What is even worse is that this type of thinking contradicts the attributes of a loving God. Accepting the premise that we serve a loving but conveniently removed God is what leads people to schisms that ultimately force them to reject Him. If we can agree that God is good and God is love and hold on to that basic character trait of God, then there can only be one reason for the state of our life.
Us.
This is where it gets difficult.
Pointing the finger back to us is the last thing anyone wants to do. We have made responsibility for our own lives the forbidden topic. We need look no further than our politics to see the end game of this type of thinking. When we refuse to look inside and ask God to change our condition and instead start blaming God for that condition, it puts us in opposition to the very nature of God. Once in opposition to who He is we must reject Him which leaves us once again with ourselves. Having the finger pointed back at us with no hope remaining for change we create a surrogate called government.
We can’t escape it, no matter how much we squirm we are still responsible because being responsible is why we are here. God made us sovereign on this planet to rule over it and instead of exercising that authority to change our own lives, we give that authority to elected officials to rule over us. The more we reject the authority in our own lives ordained by God, the more that delegated authority will be turned back to rule over us!
Jesus said an interesting thing in Matthew 28. Actually, Jesus said quite a few interesting things in Matthew 28 but this one is key. “All authority has been given to me”.
All.
Not some, or most, but all. Right after that statement Jesus told his followers to go and make disciples in all nations, baptize them, teach them His ways and that He will be with us to the end.
If Jesus has all authority, what He tells us to do we can do. Period. Jesus only did what the Father told him to do, so in the end we are to do the same. The trick is hearing the Fathers voice and I don’t want to get into that right now, but it still comes down to us.
To help us out Jesus taught us how to pray to God:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom,
the power and the glory are yours.
Now and for ever. Amen
Your Kingdom come, your will be done.
This is where we run astray in our own lives. God gave Adam authority over the planet and Adam gave it away to Satan by betraying God. Adam turned into a bad governor if you will, and the King took away his power. Jesus redeemed man through the cross and all authority was given back to Jesus becuase he was obedient. Jesus then gave that authority and right standing back to the sons of Adam. We are now workin’ for the King again. Satan no longer has a right to the authority of this world, Jesus does. When we pray for the kingdom of Heaven to come, we are literally asking God to invade this world with His kingdom.
We are His ambassadors on the earth.
I can’t overemphasize this point. God is sovereign but He will not usurp His own decree that we have authority without our permission. That in a nutshell is why you hear people ask “If God is good, why does a good God let bad things happen?”.
The truth is, it is our fault, we run the place!
When we pray we are essentially asking God to do His will on this earth as it is in Heaven. Since His kingdom is Heaven, whatever is normal there should be normal here. We are saying to God that we recognize the authority Given to us through Jesus and we align that authority to reflect the way things should be in Heaven.
Your will be done here Daddy, let her rip!
Jesus also told us to: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.”
Um, Jesus really meant we should do that, becuase I don’t think people are sick in Heaven! Pretty sure they are all alive, free of incurable diseases, and certainly not demon possessed.
I don’t know about you, but when I think about doing all that I get a little freaked out. I also get a little excited becuase I have been seeing more of it happen in and around my life.
The problem is I don’t see it happen all the time and I am earnestly pointing the finger inward and asking why, it obviously must be me.
The wonder of it all
Apr 16th
Saturday we had our 22 week checkup on our baby girl. She is doing great, Mom is doing great, Dad is doing great and everything looks perfect.
I am not sure if it is our age, losing our last baby, my sisters struggling with their pregnancies, or exactly what has changed, but whatever it is this pregnancy has been very different.
In a very good way.
I know we appreciated the other pregnancies, but this time around I think we know better. We know that getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby is not an automatic package deal. We know that sometimes our hopes and prayers go unanswered and outcomes arrive that did not fit our plans. We know that everything can change in an instant, that life is a wisp, a breath, a vapor, and the challenge is to make the most of every moment because one day every moment will be gone.
We are so blessed to be able to experience the wonder of it all this time around. To be able to move past the understanding and mechanics and clinical definitions. To remove the surface marks placed by inferior intellect in vain attempts to comprehend divine design. To forget what you think you know and rely on what you know you feel and soak it in and rest in the peace of it.
To become child like and stare at the world for what it is.
It is an amazing feeling to place your hands on the wife of your youth and feel your daughter alive inside and simply experience. Linger in the moment long enough and before long everything else just fades to black. To quietly look and feel and hear and remember that life is in the living, experience is the truer pursuit over knowledge and the moment is all we ever have.
Foot
Profile
And the moment is quite enough.
Caught between what is, what was, and what could be
Apr 2nd
God is good.
I have my theories about why it took me the better part of a third of a century to realize, but nonetheless it is true He is.
Not only is he good, He is also relentless.
Many times in my life I have misunderstood His passion for vengeance, His love for rebuke, and His pursuit for torment. God only knows one way – all the way – and for a throttled living being all the way is like going from zero to sixty in an instant.
Thrillingly frighteningly wonderfully horrifyingly painfully fast that leaves you both crying out for it to stop and praying it never will.
Acceleration is about the closest natural experience I can use to describe the nature of God when in contact with our world. I like to tell my friends that if we are praying for God to show up, there will be no doubt if He does. Grabbing hold of a live power line leaves no question in your mind if electricity has power. If you are lucky enough to live through the experience, one thing rings true, experiencing power is its own justification.
I don’t think God has ever “showed up” in my lifetime. If He did I am certain everything we know on this planet would be over. Instead, God uses His Spirit and that is what “shows up” which is really a good thing for us because God’s Spirit is a comforter.
I was thinking the other morning while I was walking in “our field” and contemplating the reality that God used to walk the earth. I was trying to imagine what that must have been like for the earth to have direct contact with God. In my mind I imagined trees and beasts and clouds and every living thing bending to be near Him. Like the grass striving to reach the sun, the whole earth would be alive with waves of movement as he strolled the garden talking with Adam, hanging on every word, in complete awe as each step fell on the skin of the earth sending shudders of power felt around the world.
And then it was over.
In a moment He was gone, and ever since the earth has been locked in groans of withdrawal pain and longing for His return.
Yea, my mornings are getting kind of interesting.
But here is where it gets really interesting for me. As I was trying to pull my brain around the concept of a force strong enough to hold gravity and light in a constant state for eternity and that same force being intimate enough to walk with man, God told me that He does walk the earth again.
He walks through us.
I am not sure what that means in the practical day to day, but I have been challenged to consider the ramifications.
What if growing in the presence of God will mean that His creation will start to respond to us? Can we release that back to the earth? I think we can and the thought of that is exhilarating.
Scripture tells us that all creation groans waiting for our redemption. I have heard it said that all creation groans for the return of the peace makers of God.
Looking at the world in the context of a creation divorced of its creator makes complete sense to the state we find nature in. Nature is locked in a profound battle of being cursed because of man and inexplicably drawn to man. It is both repulsed and attracted at the same time in a unendingly divine tension until our salvation when nature once again can feel the footsteps of God and see His face.
It is that tension that makes us have dominion over all created things. It is that tension that makes all created things want to destroy us.
I think Francis of Assisi understood this.
(reference: Wikipedia) Many of the stories that surround the life of St Francis deal with his love for animals.[21] Perhaps the most famous incident that illustrates the Saint’s humility towards nature is recounted in the ‘Fioretti’ (The “Little Flowers”), a collection of legends and folk-lore that sprang up after the Saint’s death. It is said that one day while Francis was traveling with some companions they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to “wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds”.[21] The birds surrounded him, drawn by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. Francis spoke to them:
My sister birds, you owe much to God, and you must always and in everyplace give praise to Him; for He has given you freedom to wing through the sky and He has clothed you…you neither sow nor reap, and God feeds you and gives you rivers and fountains for your thirst, and mountains and valleys for shelter, and tall trees for your nests. And although you neither know how to spin or weave, God dresses you and your children, for the Creator loves you greatly and He blesses you abundantly. Therefore… always seek to praise God.
Another legend from the Fioretti tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf “terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals”. Francis had compassion upon the townsfolk, and went up into the hills to find the wolf. Soon, fear of the animal had caused all his companions to flee, though the saint pressed on. When he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis. “Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil…” said Francis. “All these people accuse you and curse you…But brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people.” Then Francis led the wolf into the town, and surrounded by startled citizens made a pact between them and the wolf. Because the wolf had “done evil out of hunger”, the townsfolk were to feed the wolf regularly, and in return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks. In this manner Gubbio was freed from the menace of the predator. Francis, ever the lover of animals, even made a pact on behalf of the town dogs, that they would not bother the wolf again.
These legends exemplify the Franciscan mode of charity and poverty as well as the saint’s love of the natural world.[22] Part of his appreciation of the environment is expressed in his Canticle of the Sun, a poem written in Umbrian Italian in perhaps 1224 which expresses a love and appreciation of Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Mother Earth, Brother Fire, etc. and all of God’s creations personified in their fundamental forms. In “Canticle of the Creatures,” he wrote: “All praise to you, Oh Lord, for all these brother and sister creatures.”[3]
Francis’s attitude towards the natural world, while poetically expressed, was conventionally Christian.[4] He believed that the world was created good and beautiful by God but suffers a need for redemption because of the primordial sin of man. He preached to man and beast the universal ability and duty of all creatures to praise God (a common theme in the Psalms) and the duty of men to protect and enjoy nature as both the stewards of God’s creation and as creatures ourselves.[21]
Legend has it that St. Francis on his deathbed thanked his donkey for carrying and helping him throughout his life, and his donkey wept.
C.S. Lewis had a similar reverence for nature and the inherent attributes of God in it as well as our place in nature.
(reference: religion-online.org) According to Lewis, we learn more about God from Natural Law than from the universe in general, just as we discover more about people by listening to their conversations than by looking at the houses they build. Natural Law shows that the Being behind the universe is intensely interested in fair play, unselfishness, courage, good faith, honesty and truthfulness. However, Natural Law gives no grounds for assuming that God is soft or indulgent. Natural law obliges us to do the straight thing regardless of the pain, danger or difficulty involved. Natural Law is hard – “as hard as nails” (Mere Christianity, (p. 23).
I was talking with a friend Saturday during our Encounter weekend about his job. I will write more about the events of this past weekend soon, but as Rocky was sharing about the beauty of a wood door he was refinishing, I had a revelation.
We got to talking about wood, specifically burled walnut, and I turned to Rocky and said: “Rocky, all that beauty is on the inside of the tree!” We sat there for a moment trying to grasp that and a question rose up.
Why? Why was all that beauty hidden on the inside of the tree?
The earth was created for us, for man, it is for us to enjoy. The only conclusion we could come up with is that we are supposed to be able to see it.
The natural thought was sure we see it, we cut it down and rip it open and that is how we see it.
The thing is, I don’t think the original plan was to kill the tree in order to see the beauty growing inside it.
I wasn’t going to write about that today, but I think it will just have to do.
Supernatural
Mar 11th
I have started reading a book by David C. Downing on C.S. Lewis. It is called Into The Region Of Awe: Mysticism In C. S. Lewis. I had no intention of reading about C.S. Lewis. I was lead to it while searching the library for a book on the Moravians.
I may be going to Germany this summer, and intend to visit Herrnhut, the birthplace of the 1727 revival that birthed the Moravian missionary movement which literally impacted the planet.
I first heard about the Moravians through MorningStar Ministries. They own land in Moravian Falls, NC which was settled by Moravian missionaries in 1753. How MorningStar came to own the land is an interesting story in and of itself.
Something is happening to me.
Rick Joyner, 7/31/2006
The great souls in history took ground that future generations could walk over much easier, faster, and safer. A good example is Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, who took a generation to establish the principles of modern missions. They not only cut a path which others could follow, but at times, they wandered up box canyons and had to turn around, seemingly losing a lot of time and resources with their mistakes. However, even those diversions saved future generations from having to make the same ones. They prepared a highway and a good map to go with it.
We only stand where we are today because others fought through the forests and underbrush, cut down mountains and hills, and built up the low places—spiritual swamps that were full of dangers and disease. They left us a wonderful highway so we could easily make it this far with relatively little effort. Let us resolve to carry this highway as far as we can in our own generation, making it much easier for others to make it as far as we have, and then go farther.
There will be a generation who actually finishes the job. It could even be ours. We may go around the next turn, cut through the next acre of underbrush, and come face to face with His glory. Even if we are not the one who finishes the job, let us do our part as well as it can be done. The way we prepare the way for the Lord and His kingdom to come to the earth, so that His will be done here just as it is in heaven, is to build a highway.
I was talking with my son Sunday about this very concept, running on the fruits of others labor and used a road as an example. Someone had to make a great sacrifice to build it and now we have the benefit of using it. The problem we seem to run into is that we focus on the road and become content with the lovely road never to break ground on new roads. The road is there so that we can go further with less effort.
But I digress. Where was I, oh yes, the book.
So I found this book about mysticism and C.S. Lewis and at first I thought it to be an odd statement. I have not read much of Lewis, but I have found him to be a logical man. I did read the Screwtape Letters years ago and thought it was brilliant but never made the jump to mystic. To be fair, I have wasted much of my life thinking reading was a waste of time, but I intend to do more reading of Lewis very soon.
What surprised me is that the more I thought about his writing the more obvious it was that he had encounters with God. I think the guy moved in the supernatural, really moved in it. His grasp of the kingdom of God in The Chronicles of Narnia can only be explained by experiencing kingdom. We give too much credit to creativity. The best creativity is based on some sort of experience, otherwise it is just fiction.
This excerpt from Downings book was telling. “When writing about Narnia to a class of fifth graders who asked if it were possible to visit Aslan’s country, Lewis replied that the only way he knew of was through death but then added this curious qualifier: ‘Perhaps some very good people get just a tiny glimpse before then.’”
Amen.
On my walk this morning as I was mulling over the concept that science is the study of nature and since nature is a pointer to God, I realized that science will never be able to prove God. It is not an original thought, but the more I meditated on it, a simple phrase rose up in me.
“God can not be defined by what He has designed.”
God is supernatural, which literally means “above nature”. To look for Him within the confines of His creation will never do. For us as the created to try and find the creator within the confines of His creation is like trying to describe color.
Try and describe the color Red. Go ahead, try it! You can’t without a reference to something that is red! Color simply is. It is what it is and even though you can measure it, quantify it, split it, mix it, without experiencing it the concept of color is meaningless. We can do the same thing with the aroma of coffee. We can’t adequately describe aroma without a reference to something that also has aroma. Again, if you have never smelled anything how on earth can you relate it?
Now, lets try and define God. We can describe attributes of Him, but define Him from nature? Not gonna happen.
The fact that we can comprehend the concept of God is proof enough He exists. We have experienced Him already, that is the reason for our ability to even comprehend the concept, but He can never be defined by the created. Stop looking for Him in the natural, He IS the supernatural.
Einstein wrote that he was awestruck by our ability to comprehend the universe, at least in part, and in later life remarked several times that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.
Which begs the question; why does man have the ability to grasp the incomprehensible?
So that we can be one with the creator.
