Friday, 05 December 2008

• My complaint about life right now

  I miss having that person who sees life so differently from the way I do that we never run out of things to show each other about the world and God's work in it. I miss that relationship of spending time with each other just because each finds the other so darned interesting that they can't get enough. I miss talking to someone every day and having something to show them, and them having something to show me about the very same topic. I miss having that person who can just sit for hours in the coffee shop or the park or the nearest lobby and talk with me about everything under the sun. I miss having that same person to work with so perfectly because we are different enough to balance each other, but same in all the ways that we must be to get along.

  I've been trying to figure out Genesis 2:18 for a while now. Don't look it up, I'll repeat it again for good (long-expired?) measure: "The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone," NIV.
  Alone? Adam had God. How in the world did this count as alone? And yes, many Christians would have you believe that God is all you need to be complete. Well, according to God himself, no. Which is, of course, what has had me so confused all these months.

  But I think I have it figured out. The secret, I think, lies in a well-known but little thought-of verse in the Old Testament: Psalm 23:5, "... my cup overflows."

  See, here's the thing: no creature that glorifies God is alone. The angels constantly repeat to each other praise for God. Even the universe he created is not a number of individual testaments to his majesty, but an unimaginably complex system, interconnected in ways that even our best understanding of science cannot explain. So why should man be any different?

  So, he made two of them. And he made them different, "male and female," such that they understand him in different ways. Thus, man could teach woman about the aspects of God of which he was aware, and woman could do the same for man. Perhaps it was not so vital before the fall, when God walked in the garden with them and they were yet uncorrupted by sin, but it is vital now at any rate. Why? Because no human can "hold" all of God. We, imperfect, cannot fully comprehend God... he can only reveal a portion of his glory to us, or our minds would just explode with his greatness. As David put it, the cup is too small.

  So, what happens when someone "fills up" with God? Well, if you take this image and run with it, there are two options: either God can stop pouring himself into that person, and the wine of the knowledge of him sits and stagnates; or, he continues pouring newness into them, and the cup overflows. But if the cup overflows, where does the excess go? Either wasted on the ground, or into another cup.

  And that other cup, that other soul, is what I pine for these days.

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