A friend of mine recently asked me how I go about understanding God...what concretely defines my "handle" on him. If I was to go with the typical responses I'd expect to receive from many in religious or spiritual circles, I suppose there would be no shortage of trite and neatly packaged slogans and statements used to address the subject. The fact of the matter for me is that the business of attempting to define God falls into a similar kind of category to that of someone, blind from birth, being asked to describe what the sun looks like. There is little or no doubt that the phenomenon exists, but how to go about describing it when subject to such a limiting handicap would prove to be a very challenging task.
On this issue, I feel I a bit handicapped myself. Well, no surprise there, some of you are saying. Oh shurrup! :) Back on point. God defines himself as love. Jesus Christ, God once in the flesh, is love demonstrated in the purest, perfect and infinitely selfless sense. In my humble opinion, the greatest opportunity afforded to a human being to grasp this kind of love comes in the form of parenthood as it was intended to be. It is the experience of loving someone so fiercely and with such abandon, when they have done absolutely nothing to warrant it other than simply being a son or a daughter...other than simply existing. I am not a father, so I cannot grasp this kind of love. I can only imagine what it must be like to feel that kind of affection. To the degree to which I'm able to do that, and to the degree to which a parent loves their child, we are able to begin to understand the kind of affection our heavenly Father lavishes on us.
We live in a world in which suffering, poverty, wickedness and injustice are all too real, and they shout out at us loudly and continuously. In the midst of this reality, God has chosen (for the most part) to adopt a very subtle and veiled role in His dealings with humankind, for now at least. It is an approach that can very often make Him seem elusive, indifferent...even non-existent. So, what handle do I have on Him then? I think about the embrace of or a belly-aching laugh with a genuine friend, the beauty of a sunset, or being moved by inspiring creativity. I recall the moments in my life when He intervened in such an undeniable way that His fingerprints were eternally left on my heart and my soul. I consider the fact that an awareness of and a gratitude toward Him in the face of His love is impossible for me to escape, no matter how hard pressed I am by the brokenness of this world. I contemplate the wonder that the faintest whisper from the lips of my Saviour is infinitely greater than the snarls of the storms that surround me.
With my eyes blinded and my face beaten by stinging winds and rain, I reach my fragile hand out toward Him and remember His promise to save all who would call on His name. Even someone as blind as me. Rather, in light of His great love...especially someone as blind as me.
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Grant Alexander Cyster owns the blog entitled "I THINK, THEREFORE I ACHE.", offered as part of his Cape Town based freelance media business at: www.grantcyster.com
I like this,thanks. I think of that often, how God thinks of us like I do my children.That whatever they do I still love them unconditionally and would always take them back if they strayed.
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