About God...

For thousands of years we human beings have tried to understand and to know about God.  We’ve done this through the centuries with our questions:  Does God exist?  What is God like?  How does God act?  Does God care?  

J.B. Phillips wrote a little book, “Your God Is Too Small” suggesting that whatever we know of God, however we think God to be, our conception is far too small.  What do we think about God?  Is God for us the “Resident Policeman” of the universe, the “Managing Director” or the “Grand Old Man?”  Whatever our conception about God, Phillips writes, it is far too small.

The God of the Old Testament is quite a character.  Some of us think about God being like that—a “tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye,” kind of guy, a tough fellow who destroys our enemies—and declares “Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks” (Psalm 137:9).  

Others think about God as being “meek and mild” and always giving out warm fuzzies.  Some see God as Jesus described God. They talk about the “Christ-likeness of God.”  

Philosophers and theologians have provided all kinds of views about God.  What do we think about God?  For what we think about God makes all the difference in how we think about everything else—our life, our situation, our community, our neighbors, our world.  Does God know of the sparrow’s fall and the number of hairs on our heads?  Does God really know of our afflictions?  Is God love—love at the heart of things?

The anonymous 14th century writer of “The Cloud of Unknowing” says,  “Silence is not God, nor speaking; fasting is not God, nor feasting; solitude is not God, nor company…He lies hidden between them and no work of yours can possibly discover him save only your heart’s love.  Reason cannot fully know him for he cannot be thought, possessed or discovered by the mind.  But loved he may be and chosen by the artless, affectionate longing of your heart.  Choose him, then, and you will find that your speech is become silent, your silence eloquent, your fast as feast, your feasting a fast, and so on.  Choose God in love…For this blind thrust, this deep shaft of longing love will never miss the mark, God himself.”

We may know about all things, even about God, but without love says this writer, we may know about God, yet never know God.