#1 in the “Mysterious God” Series

I believe the primary reason is because He is.

You may say, “well, of course.  We all know God is unfathomable.”  It’s an easy concept with which to agree, but a much harder one to truly believe.  I think we are often quite blissfully unaware of the chasms that exist between our hearts and our heads.

I’d like you ponder the issue of safety.  It is a desire nearly as organic as our breathing.  We don’t realize how much we depend upon it until we lose it.  Then it suddenly thrusts itself upon us as one of our basest of human needs.  We want to feel secure, free from threat, able to relax, like a bird high upon a tree, out of sight of predators, who fluffs himself up and settles in for a nap.

Much of this sense of safety rides on our knowing what to expect, or of feeling that things are generally in order, in their place, behaving as they should.  A simple picture of this is your home.  Your home is one of the places where you most expect to find safety.  One does not generally open the door with caution, uncertain about who or what you will find inside.  You proceed into each room with an easy familiarity.  You assume your home is safe, not even thinking about an alternate reality, unless you have experienced it before.  Our innate protective bubble of safety only gets popped when life sticks a pin into it.  The person whose home has been vandalized will always know the unforeseen could happen again.

I believe that those who suffer from the extremes, whether it is paranoia or recklessness only exemplify how strong a force it is.  And those who have lived in a continual state of physical risk, such as an abused child or the persecuted church can understand more fully how traumatic it is to live without it.

Because the desire for safety is so nearly instinctual, we may not even realize how often we avoid the threat of losing it, even when it comes to our perspective of God.  The fact we must face is that a mysterious God is not a safe one.  He is profoundly different in character from the vandal or the persecutor, but the very presence of the mystery is a threat to our sense of safety.  To be vulnerable to change, to the unknown, to a God so incomprehensible is to invite possible peril.  It is by force of His love and nature within us that we rise above this reaction to embrace His absolute goodness.  Left alone, we may easily agree with the concept of the Mysterious, while quietly and even subconsciously dismissing any real emotional engagement with the idea.

But to embrace anything other than this idea is to make God something less than He is.  The plain fact is that He IS mysterious and unfathomable, both in gloriously predictable and unpredictable ways.  Whether our motivation for embracing a different view is fear or woundedness, when we fashion God into an image of our own making we create an idol.  Now, I am acutely aware of our finite minds – we will never in our lifetimes see an entirely accurate picture of God.  That is the very paradox of the thing!  Yet at every point which is in our power we must attempt to embrace the reality of His nature, so that we truly worship Him.

A secondary reason I believe that God must remain mysterious is because it reminds us that while we were made in the image of God, we are not gods ourselves.

I believe it is part of our design to know, to understand, to find the patterns of the universe, to explore the “why” of our existence.  Through this relentless curiosity we are expected to encounter the Creator, to worship at His feet, to be overcome with awe at His handiwork.  He is the ultimate answer behind the biggest Why proposed by the greatest scientist or philosopher.  However, sin introduced a virus into the system and the quest to know became corrupted.  The more questions we can answer, the more arrogant we become, the more power we crave, the more like gods we feel.  The seeds of Lucifer’s pride are in our souls.

It is crucial for us to continually remind ourselves of our true size and place in the universe.  Yes, we were set to rule over the rest of creation, but we are still part of the created.  We are a chip off the old block, but we are not the block itself.  Our corrupted design, unredeemed, recoils from the kind of vulnerability necessary to keep these facts plainly in our view.  If we can’t figure out God, we can’t control or predict Him and we are therefore subject to His whims.  The lie the serpent told Eve was that God was holding something back from them, and that fear still plagues us now.  It is again the transformational power of God that transports us to a place of trust in His goodness but it is a process we must intentionally embrace.  It does not happen on its own.

It is my goal in the following articles to make you think, to break you out of established patterns, to plant the seeds of growth and expansion in your spirit.  Most of all, I hope to instill in you a passion of unrelenting discovery and overwhelming encounters.  Every time we are moved to awe, we at least for that moment, have some real perspective of what it means to serve a Living God.  Much of what I share will be from my own growth experiences and journey, which are themselves still very much in process.

For years I blamed it on the dream. Following that dream was why I crashed and burned, why I nearly had a nervous breakdown, why I made a ridiculous move and then had to come back home in pieces. I distinctly remember the long drive back to my hometown, every mile between me and the departed city adding one more inner vow to the towering heap.

That portion of my birthright got hopelessly tangled in a knot of pain, fear, and a Mercy style determination never to end up in that place again. It has taken much work and healing to begin to untie the knots and rescue the gem from the kinks and snarls.

There is a particular piece of this journey I would like to share because it may have value for those of you who have done the same thing I did.

I confused design with my decisions. When I moved away to the other city I planned on living cheaply, working part-time, living on a strict budget so that I could devote more hours to doing what I dreamed of doing. The budget was truly workable. I did my due diligence in terms of research and I could live on what I made and have free time for other things.

I had not been there long before I began to grow impatient with the restrictions of my lifestyle. I had to use the bus system because I had sold my car. I had to watch my expenditures like a hawk. I couldn’t just hop in the car and go somewhere. And I had too long ignored a dangerous undercurrent regarding my desire for approval and willingness to be persuaded by others.

I didn’t crash and burn because of the dream. I crashed because I lost focus of what I was trying to achieve, because I made bad decisions out of selfishness, because I let others persuade me to choose comfort over calling. The dream was wholly innocent, though it provided a brilliant scapegoat for an opportunistic enemy.

In these recent days, God has sharpened this picture tremendously. I had been making progress in healing, but this piece caused a monumental shift. Not only can I now completely separate my design from immaturity, but I have a profound new respect for the necessity of the things I was lacking at the time. My design and desire to pursue it were evidence of the fingerprints of God. But because of what I lacked in character and maturity I could not bring that potential into reality.

Dreams are not perfect. They have to grow, to mature, to develop, to be honed through revelation. But I wonder how often the enemy pushes us to turn against our design because it was the motivation in the midst of the mess. Do we throw the baby out with the bath water?

You might go back to some of the dreams that are buried in the graveyard or that lie tangled in the knots of pain and bitterness. Is there a gem of design in there? Is there a fingerprint of Almighty God, your Creator? If so, perhaps you could ask Him to help you separate out the design from the decisions. To show you where His design endures even to this very moment, in spite of the decisions surrounding its current state.

And if He has you, like me, on a pilgrimage of stringent growth, celebrate with me in His wisdom in knowing what we really need to accomplish the things He has made us to do. For while He may do some things without us, He does most things through us. We must have within us the strength and fortitude to make decisions that unpack that design, and turn His plan into reality.

The Prophet redemptive gift often gets ridiculed for their black and white, principles prevail, die on the cross of truth approach to life.  A
Prophet will do or believe something simply because it is right (or they think it is right), with no foreseeable benefit, and in fact, even in the face of great persecution and cost of relationship.  But even though the Prophet may be prickly at times, there is something incredibly trustworthy and comforting about a Prophet who has their moral compass in the right place.  It won’t move for nuthin’.

I admire them greatly for that.

The rest of us are generally more easily swayed by the influence of others, by our relationships, and by the opinions of those we consider important.  The Prophet may have to work to maintain relationship, the rest of us have to work to maintain our bedrock of beliefs.

This topic has been in the forefront of my consciousness lately because of a recent discussion with someone.  You know, not all revelations are nice to receive.  Sometimes you see something grand and beautiful and you can hear heaven singing over this gem of a truth.  Other times you see something rather dirty and dingy, some hidden piece of selfishness that smells as bad as rotten milk.  Yet both can bring glorious freedom.  Go figure.

In this particular case the person realized that relationship was the primary determining factor for the excellence of their performance.  There was a low-end established threshold, but relationship was what determined how hard they would try, when they would invest deeper effort, and when they would stop.  If the relationship began to level out and reach positive numbers, well, the focus on performance would quickly drop to whatever the established norm was in that area.

Perhaps this doesn’t sound all that strange.  We often change our behavior because of someone else.  A spouse may change their habits, a boyfriend may dress better, a teenager may get good grades so she can go to a party over the weekend, an employee may work to get a raise from his boss – these are all normal life occurrences.  But just because they are normal doesn’t mean they are right, or anywhere near the best.

What about an internal compass of excellence?

For the particular person in question, this was a startling and horrifying realization, and gave some perspective on relationship difficulties they were having.  The horrifying part was realizing just how much the performance hinged on relationship and what that said about their own internal standard.  Yikes.

What is your internal compass of excellence?  When a relationship starts to improve, do you let up on your improvements?  It is not wrong to be inspired to change because it would benefit someone you love.  But your change should maintain itself because it is something you believe in, not because it is simply a response to the pressure from outside.

I think this can be a particularly challenging dynamic for the two most relationship focused gifts, the Exhorter and the Mercy.  For these two gifts, relationship is life.  The Exhorter needs people, the Mercy needs a person.  In either case, the standard can easily be dictated by the flux of relationship, and so naturally that the Exhorter or Mercy may not even realize they are doing it.  If you are either of these two gifts, I would strongly encourage you to take an honest look at the reality of what drives your behavior.

The ultimate relationship with which we should be concerned is our relationship with God.  But even aside from that, I wonder if we have something more to learn from how He designed the Prophet.  A Prophet can be an atheist and will still find a compass in some perception of truth, distorted as it may be.  The Prophet seems wired to find the eternal truth, tapping into the nature of God, not just the relationship with Him.  Of course, it should be our deepest desire to please God, to strengthen our relationship in every way possible.  But I think that even deeper still, we can resonate with the Truth and the Right of Who He is.

What is your compass?

Dare to ask.

“The one who had denied Him
Who had once walked on the water
Jumped in and swam to Him
To be confronted on the shore.”
-Stranger on the Shore by Michael Card

Have you ever wondered what Peter was feeling when they recognized that the stranger on the shore was Jesus?

Joy?  Fear?  Dread?  Desperation?  All of the above?

Maybe it was the first time Peter saw Jesus after He had risen from the dead.  Some commentaries theorize that it was so.  Perhaps it was not.  Probably Peter had already seen Him somewhere else.  But could one or even two brief encounters assuage the deep grief and remorse over his denial?  So far as we know from Scripture, if he did see Jesus earlier, there was not a private conversation between them.  Yet the unbelievable (though predicted!) had happened.  Jesus was not dead.  How could Peter possibly let another opportunity go by without making things right?

Perhaps Peter thought he could have a moment alone with Jesus while the others were tending to the boat and the fish.  Perhaps he somehow knew this would be the last time they would see Him.  Perhaps he didn’t think at all.  Perhaps it was a surging tidal wave of emotion that propelled him over the side of the boat and into the water.

I only wonder.  As I was recently listening to this old favorite by Michael Card, I felt the lyrics in a whole new way – aching with the intensity of emotions from such a scene.  Jesus is standing on the shore.  He is not dead. A glorious hope cut through the gloom in Peter’s soul.  Maybe he would not live the rest of his life with the crushing guilt of denial.  As humans we know the finality of death all too well.  Hearts can’t be mended, apologies can’t be made, hatchets can’t be buried.  It is over.

But Jesus is alive.  Yet, still, the grief over what had been done.  How could he approach the Lord?  What a juxpositioning of joy, dread, and desperation.

All of this Jesus well knew.  Was it possible that He rigged the whole thing solely for the redemption of Peter?

We do not have record of any private conversation until Jesus began asking Peter about love.  I wonder how much Peter actually comprehended what Jesus was doing.  Perhaps not entirely, since he was offended by the third question.  But restoration had happened, through the infinite wisdom and tenderness of the Master.  What Jesus had said long ago, even then knowing what Peter would do, was still true.  Peter would be the rock on which He would build the church.

How I wonder how many things changed in Peter that day.  Amid the swirling emotions, whether he knew it or not, he had experienced the power of life over death.  Life conquered the grave to give him a precious gift of reconciliation in the flesh, and even more so, a testament to the restoration of our souls.

Today I went to church with some friends who are soon leaving for the mission field.  The service hadn’t begun yet, so I let my mind wander like the restless child who isn’t yet required to sit still and pay attention.  Somehow I landed on the topic of the fear of man.  It may not be as random as it sounds since I have been listening to the story of Nelson Mandela.  I have a lot of respect for his ability to resist intimidation.  It’s not an easy thing to do, and I have often, especially in the past, battled an unhealthy need for approval.

I was not pondering these thoughts with any great intensity, but God is a gifted opportunist and decided to pose a question.  He said, “Do you know that I make people?”  It may seem like an obvious question, but if you have ever heard God ask an “obvious” question you know as well as I do that they can have some rather unexpected results.

In the recent months God has been growing my love for Him as Creator.  I have long had a deep sense of awe regarding nature and science, but He has been turning my Bunsen burner into a flamethrower.  The poetry of creation in the book of Job has simply come alive.  The eternity of God, knowing Him as the Ancient of Days, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and Omega, the God who was and is and is to come … well, you could lose me into the ether for three days.

But the connection of the fear of man and God making man was one that I had not seen like this before.  Many times people have a way of filling up the frame and we can’t see anything else.  It seemed that God stretched the frame and showed me there is something more to the picture. I realized that I have an audience with the Maker of any person standing in front of me.  Think of that.  I don’t care who it is or whether they love or hate you, they are a created being.  They are as dependant on the creative genius of God as you are.  And you have an invitation to commune with that same God.  The Inventor.  The Mastermind.  The Maker of all Mankind.  You have a relationship with Him.  In light of that incredible dynamic, the person and their intimidation factor seem to shrink from the super-human status we give them.  The size of the invention pales in comparison to that of the inventor.

In the past I had always looked at the power of God or His love or even pleasing Him over pleasing people as primary ways of overcoming the fear of man.  I had never thought of the fact that my access to the Creator loomed like a giant presence over the shoulder of every person I talk to.  That’s something to think about!

I know that people can (and do) still cause us very real pain and will do it regardless of what we know about them.  But our ability to stand strong is still vitally important and so is our dignity as well.  And while this perspective may not be the paramount bulwark against intimidation, it is still worth pondering.  It has been soaking into my spirit like a gentle rain on the soil, and perhaps there are one or two others out there who will find great joy in this facet of their connection to the Maker of all Mankind.