Friday, March 28, 2008
Porting God
At CGO, Leigh McElroy writes of God's "iPod-ness."
Humility is the essence of the idea that Leigh has herein developed. It requires humility to know that we don't know.
"I don't know" are, unquestionably the most difficult words in the English language for me to muster. As a consultant, I make my living by knowing, knowing more than the people around me. Those people pay me to know what they do not know and for me to provide them access to that knowledge. If I don't know, I am pretty pointless, and seriously overpaid. And if the occasional instance arises where I actually do not know, I darn well better be able to find out really quickly.
But most people do not make a living by being an expert on something, and yet we so readily cast ourselves in the expert role. Even as an expert, my expertise is in a very limited field, and outside that field I am as lost as the next guy, or gal. But even writing that last phrase I get a bit of a twinge, like I am less somehow by the admission.
I think that is where the rub lies. We think we are less somehow when we do not know. But such belies a serious misunderstanding of what we were created to be. See, in our lack of knowledge and subsequent reliance on the Almighty, we actually assume our proper place, and in attaining such we become not less, but more.
We are creatures created to know less and depend more. The problem is we never really figure that out until we reach the state. Try it - you might find it much more comfortable than you suspect.
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I decided, "iPod-ness" was an ever-changing, randomly-ordered, and infinite subset of the words and melodies I love best. A sample, if you will, of a much bigger library of music that is far too vast to contain or transport. Of all the songs in the world ever composed and sung, my iPod holds less than a sliver. So what's that got to do with God? Maybe this: I don't believe I've seen or heard even a little of what he's been pouring forth since time began. I'm pretty sure that the Grand Canyon - magnificent as it is - isn't his defining work. That crafting butterflies and wheat fields and a baby's sigh didn't begin to exhaust his creativity. That all the randomly ordered samplings I've seen of his goodness and his grace put together wouldn't crowd his iPod, if he had one.I, in turn am very glad that Leigh "gets" this extraordinary point. Most Christians I know think that the sliver of God they have on their spiritual iPod is all there is, and they are willing to do serious intellectual and spiritual battle with you to prove it.
[...]
Wouldn't it be a shame to be satisfied with only a shuffled sample of what I think are his "greatest hits," marvelous as they are? God's "iPod-ness" reminds me that there's infinitely more of him than I can carry in my pocket. And I'm so very glad that's true.
Humility is the essence of the idea that Leigh has herein developed. It requires humility to know that we don't know.
"I don't know" are, unquestionably the most difficult words in the English language for me to muster. As a consultant, I make my living by knowing, knowing more than the people around me. Those people pay me to know what they do not know and for me to provide them access to that knowledge. If I don't know, I am pretty pointless, and seriously overpaid. And if the occasional instance arises where I actually do not know, I darn well better be able to find out really quickly.
But most people do not make a living by being an expert on something, and yet we so readily cast ourselves in the expert role. Even as an expert, my expertise is in a very limited field, and outside that field I am as lost as the next guy, or gal. But even writing that last phrase I get a bit of a twinge, like I am less somehow by the admission.
I think that is where the rub lies. We think we are less somehow when we do not know. But such belies a serious misunderstanding of what we were created to be. See, in our lack of knowledge and subsequent reliance on the Almighty, we actually assume our proper place, and in attaining such we become not less, but more.
We are creatures created to know less and depend more. The problem is we never really figure that out until we reach the state. Try it - you might find it much more comfortable than you suspect.
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