info @ the P.Pole 12.13.05

3 things i've come to realize about God:

• He must be, contrary to common belief, the most youthful Being ever. Think about it, only infants and children have endless amounts of enthusiasm and joy, and only children can continually find pleasure and interest in what we the self-proclaimed "wise" and "practical" would claim as mundane. God is more like a young child (and this is not so hard to believe since God does not age or grow feeble).
• He is a Person, a living, breathing and most importantly speaking (meaning acting) Being. God doesn't sit back and let His Kingdom that Jesus spoke so fervently about is not something that is only coming. It's here, all around us, right now. I rather not believe in a God with promises for the future who doesn't have anything to say about my life here and now. So for all us Christians to live in complacency with our sinful lives makes no sense. Jesus as Sanctifier means He's doing something, now. Whether we see it or not, or how quickly we surrender to His will is another story.
• God is the single, most joyous Being ever. I liked Dallas Willard's** comparisons of man's pleasure to God's pleasure. Imagine the most beautiful, picturesque beach you. Now realize that God sees beaches like this, all of them on Earth and possibly on billions of other planets as well, all at once. He also perceives and appreciates the beauty of billions of galazies and nebulas simultaneously. it took us humans years to build telescopes to see just one of these at a time, and it still took our breaths away. "Now imagine that, but everywhere." (the fire dude from Fantastic 4)
  

Arthur gave me a good idea today. When someone proposes a "better" alternative (as in, their version of a world if they were God), run with the idea and have faith that God will prove through simple logic and analysis that there is no other way but God's. I'll remember that the next time I want to pull another "Please don't reduce my God to nothing more than a magic genie" moment. But hey, harshly formed ideas of God may require harshly formed rebukes.

** Dallas Wilard is the author of The Divine Conspiracy