aiming at stars with a flashlight…

March 23, 2009

most people in the world actually do believe ins ‘god’ or ‘God’…in some way. Give me opportunity to define what I mean by that. I’ll try to keep it simple. How about this for a basice definition of God:

‘something or someone‘ greater than anything that we could actually prove or demonstrate or even explore properly through our own rather puny human logic.

now don’t get me wrong…i love humanity and being a human being. it is out of awe and humility for the creation around me that that i can admit that, i don’t have what it takes to wrap my mind around everything that exists.

these kinds of thoughts have created many arguments about God. we could argue about whether or not God exists in the first place…and if God does exist, is he a she…or is she a he…or a little of both or neither? what about God’s nature? what about God’s actions in the world that we live in?

have you ever stood outside on a clear dark night and aimed a flashlight at a star? or how about this one…would you ever aim a flashlight at a clear sky during the middle of the day to see if the sun was shining? doing so, is like some of the arguments that we have about God. the sun is so bright that as we look up to see if the beam from our flashlight is hitting its target, we might get blinded ourself…and then we realize that pointing a flashlight at the sun will not accomplish what we hoped that it would.

what is the value in speaking and thinking about God as though he can be measured in a laboratory. if you want to study mathematics, you can look directly into the equation itself (like looking into the sun), and not get blinded…yet…that is how some of us will approach God.

if you have ever studied music theory, you soon learn that at a certain level…music is all mathematics…now unless you really love math, you would not find much joy at all in a great musical piece by disecting the science of it… isn’t it much more enjoyable to lean back, close your eyes and let the music wash over you…

perhaps that is how we should approach a discussion about God. rather than try to stare God down, and end up blind in the end by how big God really is…perhaps it is best to look away for a while. perhaps once you look away from how big God is, and you look at what is around you in this world, it will be easier to see everything else clearly.