I'm taking this really awesome class with my friend about the Bible and science...it's live for us, but you can get the DVD and it's totally worth your money. This week we were discussing the complexity and fluidity of ancient Hebrew, and how the nature of Hebrew affects modern translations of the Bible, particularly Genesis 1 and 2. It's actually way more interesting that it initially sounds, especially when you begin to consider how difficult it is to find specific, exact English words that perfectly correlate to the Hebrew and explain the Creation story.
I just love it! Our God is so big, that not everything about Him can perfectly fit into human words, can be described in our human literary abilities, can be comprehended by our amazing yet limited human brains. No wonder folks argue tooth and nail, trying to merge modern science and an eternal God. I don't know about you, but I want a big God, not a teeny, wimpy one that always makes sense and divides life into clear cut befores and afters. The whole lesson got me thinking about the big, loose, and awesome nature of God, and I remembered a really cool quote I heard years ago:
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."
-Gilda Radner
Delicious ambiguity....although the basic tenets of our faith and salvation are NOT ambiguous, so much about God is. Not because He isn't sure who He is, but because we aren't made to fully comprehend Him in this life. I don't know a whole lot about Gilda's personal faith or lifestyle, but it seems to me this quote isn't about life. Reread the quote and exchange 'life' for 'Faith in Christ.'
As I go through my daily walk, some days (and seasons) are harder than others, to the point that life seems disjointed, nonsensical, and ambiguous. We have our plans, and then God has His plans. I'm learning, daily, to trust in Him and move forward in faith, not knowing what's coming next. Daily we must remember His promise for our future and His plans for us. And sometimes our stories don't make sense when viewed outside the realm of the ultimate Kingdom story, in which we are really only the most minor of characters. Sometimes life hurts and the ending (temporarily) seems sad; the best we can do is dust ourselves off and keep going.
However...we do get our perfect ending, no matter how our daily lives appear. This week we celebrate Easter, the Resurrection. I think N.T. Wright puts it best (this is a rough paraphrase here)...without Christmas, we lose a couple chapters of the gospels, but without the Resurrection, we lose 80% of the New Testament. Our hope in this is secure...no doubt about it.
Whatever we face in this life, in our spiritual walk, in our struggles, is nothing compared to the total certainty we have in Christ, in the Resurrection.
Delicious ambiguity here....certainty in hope for the future and the nature of God.
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