"Sometimes this life just don’t make sense at all, when the mountains look so big and my faith just seems so small. So hold me Jesus cause I’m shaking like a leaf . . ." Those words are from one of my favorite Rich Mullins’ songs, "Hold Me Jesus,’’ and they soared through my head as I stood in the Swiss Alps on top of the highest mountain in Europe. It seems the more I know, the more I realize how little I do know. It was truly awesome and breathtaking to look at the splendor and majesty of God’s creation and its diversity from Europe to America. I feel so small and overwhelmed. Did you know that you can hold a dime at arm’s length at night and if you had superman vision you could see 15 million stars like our sun behind that dime? Yet it was comforting to worship with other Christians some 5,000 miles away who love and serve the same God.
cell phones . . . e-mail our answering machines to send subliminal faxes . . .
It seems like just a few years ago I remember the ads for this new information super highway and wondered if it would catch on or not. Now we have cell phones that can e-mail our answering machines to send subliminal faxes to our subconscious which has brain cell waiting so that if I’m thinking about something else, I can get back to myself later. Computers mock us as we try to figure out what in the world it means to have a "fatal error detected at kernel NT923xz819m-i-c-k-e-y-mouse." We live in a society that believes everything is relative and we can’t really be so bold as to say we actually know what the truth is. Of course, the Bible says that there is truth and that we CAN know it. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." But how can we know that is true? How can we really know anything about God, who is so far beyond our mental comprehension (the most complex computer with 18 billion zigabytes is like a tinker toy to God).
I once read an excerpt from author C.S. Lewis, which I am constantly reminding myself of these days, as he struggled with this very dilemma. One example that originally discouraged him from Christianity or even believing there was a God, came from literature. Lewis was frustrated, thinking that no one could know God personally any more than Hamlet could know Shakespeare. Obviously a character in a book can not jump off the pages into the real world. Two years later he became a Christian and his analogy of Hamlet played a role. A relationship between a character and author would be impossible from the character's initiative. However, Shakespeare the author could write himself into the play as Shakespeare the character and thereby make the introduction possible. Lewis realized God had done this very thing so we could know Him, namely making Himself known to us as He came into our world as God the Son. God wrote himself into mankind’s history book in the form of Jesus, allowing all the other characters (that includes you and me) to know Him. The only way we can actually personally know the author, is for the AUTHOR to come into our world.
That is why I am confident in knowing truth about God. Not because I’m dogmatic or think I’m so intelligent, but because God Himself has revealed it to us!
I know what you’re thinking, "Your one chance to combine Dr. Seuss & Shakespeare in the title, Larry, and you blew it! Green Eggsxistentialism and Hamlet." Titles provided by comedic genius of David Manzi.