I read a book yesterday, just a short 570 pages. It's been a while since i read a book all the way through, and even longer since i read one in less than a week. This was an all time record for me. I read about 30 pages on Saturday night, and finished it on Sunday between playing with my daughter, and taking a trip up to the in-laws for Super Bowl Sunday.
That i read the book that fast is a testament to what it stirred in me. The book was a bit of a treatise on the relationship between science and religion (particularly the Holy Catholic Church), though fiction. The story was riveting, and what i felt left with was surprising. Despite reading a secular story, obviously fiction, the story left me remembering the mystery of God. It'd be hard to explain why without recapping the story step by step, but this is what i felt after completing the book.
I was thinking about my re-realized sense of God's mystery this morning. "This is exactly what i need," I thought. A little mystery always stirred my heart towards God. I am fatally flawed in the attention department, and the mundane often finds me wondering to something else to excite me. But, God's mystery! This is what i need to draw close again! Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
I've been entranced by God's mystery before, and it always wears off. What keeps me in the times when mystery is hidden? Well, frankly not much. These are always the times i wrestle with my motivation. But, the times i press through, it is one thing that keeps me clinging tight: Discipline.
My wife would tell you this is not my strongest suit, and she would be right. There are many different types of Christian people in the world, and I think God wants it that way. I will take the liberty here of oversimplifying them into 2 groups: those who relish God's mystery, and those who swear by discipline to his principles. Fewer of us, it seems, find a relaxing spot somewhere in between the two. We usually have a bent one way or the other. There are those that bounce from church to church looking for the new excitement. There are those who go to the same church for 50 years, and resist any change in principle or protocol. God loves them both, I am sure.
Still, driving to work this morning, thinking about my own fascination with God's mystery, i couldn't help but also realize that without discipline, my awe of God's mystery wasn't worth much. As soon as the awe of the mystery wore off, I'd be back to trying hard not to wander off. The flip side had to be true also, then. Rabid discipline to God's precepts without a sense of his presence or mystery, without a sense of awed inspiration seemed completely emtpy also. Wasn't that what the Pharisees were accused of anyway? Being well polished on the outside, but void of God's love on the inside?
It seems that perhaps the most well rounded lovers-of-God amongst us, despite a bent one way or the other, have a healthy awe for the mystery of God driving them to discipline, or a discipline to God's word that is reinforced by a sense of His gravitas.
This is interesting in light of the fact that God created so many things with opposites that seem to hold everything in balance: light and dark, good and evil, heaven and hell, the now and the not yet...
Maybe i am just overstating the obvious.
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5 comments:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts babe. I knew SOMETHING had to have been stirred in you for you to dedicate an entire day and even most of Super-bowl Sunday to reading a book! Its been a while since I've seen you do that! Thanks for sharing the insights... Though I normally could probably fit into your category of christians who find themselves easily awed by God, could use a fresh wave of that too. I have some heart-ponderings stirring that I am sure I will be brave and share with the group - about what I need to both "undo" and "do" for Lent. It kinda fits into what you are sharing... maybe not blatantly, but partially. It has to do with the mundane in MY life competing for turf with the Holy. I always say I want Holiness, I want to and love to worship my "Holy" God... but more often than not my days are filled with the "blah" of worldy things.
Perhaps this reflects our faith journey with God in the
- Knowing, and
- Not Knowing.
Many churches have great difficulty with promoting faith in the "not knowing"--it leaves God outside the tidiness of well-defined beliefs, programs, and expectations. However, this is just the kind of God we all deeply crave--to go on some wild adventure of the eternal in the here and now.
I think you are totally right. I definitely crave adventure with God. But, it may also be the thing that scares me the most because it is so unknown.
I was thinking about "getting over the hump" with extreme devotion to God this afternoon (going on an adventure if you will), and i couldn't shake the feeling that deep knowledge of God often comes after, through, or by tragedy (or at least suffering) in our lives. But, my American prerogatives and preferences won't allow me to suffer if i don't have to.
I keep finding myself looking for shortcuts. I want all of God, but not the suffering. I want to live in awe of God without having to press through the difficulty of discipline. As Delirious put it, we want the rose but not the thorns.
I have to say I have always been in the "Awe" group, never much to the discipline. However I often feel that all the awe that builds up inspires me and creates more interest and need for the discipline. I have such minimal knowledge of the Bible and God's word. I really enjoy going to church and now home group, I feel energized and excited to be learning more of what God expects of us and I am really excited to be growing in this area of my life as I have no doubt it will greatly impact every aspect of my life in a positive way. Thank you for inviting me and for helping me to grow. I really value your thoughts, your help and your friendship. I can't thank you enough.
Allison, I'm glad you've been inspired. Keep it up! See you Sunday.
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