We contradict the Lord to his face when we say: It is hard, it is difficult; we cannot, we are men; we are encompassed with fragile flesh. O blind madness! O unholy audacity! We charge the God of all knowledge with a twofold ignorance, that he does not seem to know what he has made nor what he has commanded, as though, forgetting the human weakness of which he is himself the author, he imposed laws upon man which he cannot endure.
~Pelagius (c. 354-after 418)
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?7 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
~ Jesus, King of the Universe, in Matthew 6
Oh beloved, it is so true that we are willing to abandon the truth. We give lip-service to the truth that He truly cares for us. And then the first bit of stress crosses our field of view and we can start to panic. Oh my, is there anything in us that will be found usable when He completes the work He has begun (and will surely finish) within us?
Nah.
But in the place of the old man He has already and is further setting about to destroy, He is building a true and noble and just and pure and lovely and contented and courageous being who will be very much like Him on that Day. And as He keeps smashing the old and replacing it with the new Life of Himself within us, we begin to get a picture of Who it Is that is at work within us.
We begin to understand who He is. Oh, the understanding is infantile. But, as a baby most surely knows the scent of her mother, we are coming to understand the things He is – and that which He is not.
At first we tried to grasp the huge concepts and terms that the scholars were trying (worshipfully) to share with us. We heard the passion in our preacher’s voice as he spoke of G_d’s asiety and simplicity and immanence and omnibenevolence. And as wowed as we were, we somehow wondered if the classification of Who He Is in some ways missed the truth the exercise was trying to unveil. For, He is most surely all the things He reveals Himself to be, and so much (read infinitely) more.
However, the more deeply He reveals Himself to us, the more astoundingly simple He becomes to us. As we begin to see that He is bigger than infinity, and has constructed eternity as a simple dwelling place for Himself, we find an even deeper truth. Within the astounding enormity and holiness and power and beauty of this incomprehensible Being – we see a Person. A real Person.
We see a real Person who is simply and profoundly concerned for our welfare. And yes, this same Person is the holder and source of the attributes He has revealed to us. He is indeed really big. He is really strong. He is REALLY Loving. He really cares about my problems more than i do, and is better able to take care of them. But in seeing The One for who He is, we begin to see that these attributes are without measure, and thus able to be applied at any scale we can imagine – both large or small.
Can we see it? It makes total sense that G_d would both know and count every hair on our heads. The incredible cosmic power of Deity is not wasted on the mundane facts about us. He simply does Love us. And He has every conceivable resource available to be this Love to us and for us.
And once we see the truth that this One has already put everything He is, into Loving us and caring for us, we come to see that there really is only one response that makes any sense. We are to set our eyes on the One who already has His beautiful eyes on us, and pursue the relationship into its eternal depths.
Oh! those Eyes! This writer will race you to the bottom of the pools of Beauty they are!
