Day: May 28, 2012

We so need God to be more and different from anyone we have ever known, including ourselves. Every human being that we have been appointed to know in this life sooner or later turns out to have feet made very much of clay. Based on our experiences with parents, leaders, mentors, “significant others” and friends most of us seem to be forever having to relearn the dual lessons that no one on Earth is perfect and that someone who is perfect is exactly what we most require.

We can be eternally thankful that some of the very definitions of our God describe a Being who is absolutely perfect, absolutely able and absolutely loving. More than that, we can be equally thankful that this God is made fully manifest in Jesus Christ.

One thing that is clear from a careful reading of the New Testament is that, whatever the 12 apostle’s experiences were of the Son of Man during the three years they were physically with Him He never left these men disappointed. Were they perplexed at times? Yes. But disappointed? No. It is not in God’s nature to disappoint those who seek him through His Son. It is impossible for a perfect and perfectly loving Deity to do so.

It is so easy for us not to viscerally appropriate this truth. The abandoning earthly father, the rejecting pastor, the betraying spouse-our experiences with all these, and many more, flawed, fallen human beings condition us to expect the same from God. So does the realization of our own inability to live up to the standards of our accusing consciences. Everyone, including ourselves, disappoint us in some way in the end. Without the Lord it is a lonely and despairing end indeed.

But then Jesus comes into our lives in the unique way He does for each unique person. When He does one of the first things He reveals to us (if we let Him) is that He will never leave or forsake us. As we go on in Christ through the years we come to realize that we do not want to ever leave or forsake Him either. Perhaps the best and simplest reason we don’t leave Him is that we now know that He won’t leave us.

I believe Homo Sapiens were created by God with an innate desire to find a perfectly whole answer to the need for completion. We cannot rest until and unless we find that answer in Christ. Pascal’s “God-shaped hole” really does exist in the hearts of each and every one of us. It cannot be filled except by the One who is “more and different” than anyone we have ever known, or ever will know, among our fellow human beings.

We simply need more than other people, even other children of God, can give us. That is no more and no less than God can give us, if we are open to receiving it from Him and Him alone.