Day 3047 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 11:33 NIV

There's such a unique beauty to be endlessly found within this impossible opportunity to sound the depths of what's truly a bottomless ocean of wisdom and mercy and benevolence and wrath and divinity and the purest truth there is.

Taking any time whatever to consider the furthest reaches that our minds can contemplate in regard to this faith leaves one simply speechless. What is there to say about that which we can't possibly know on this side of life? What words can we use to try and convey the impossibilities of that which no eye has seen nor ear caught whisper of before? How can we possibly undertake a walk that leads us off of and away from all we've ever known?

It's truly, as we discussed yesterday, entirely beyond us. We cannot contain the wisdom of God. We can't paint a portrait which captures His likeness. Humanity simply has not the ability to completely understand the entirety of His divine quality. It's too much, too big, too different, too illogical to all that we've always relied upon to be constant and unwavering.

Yes, God is so high and above all that we know of to be factual enough to form a basis of evidentiary explanation. He is bigger than science which is the complete encompassment of all human understanding. He is beyond truth as He's the One who defined it. He is stronger than immutability and invincibility. He exists beyond time. No space can contain Him as He himself laid out the heavens. He is found outside of the physicality of tangibility.

Who are we to contemplate such inconceivable ideas? Who are we to boldly pray to a God who shouldn't be concerned about such beings of such lowly status as being confined to a temporal existence? Who are we to pretend that faith is something we can master, understand, define or construct by way of rules drummed up within a human mind? Are we not but clay which is either fashioned into a useful vessel or shattered to pieces?

I think this mindset we've gathered as it's been taught to us by a world so full of itself that it cannot realize its emptiness has caused us to misunderstand our inability. We're in no way as resourceful or reasonable or responsible or even rational as we so often see ourselves to be. We're every bit the wayward and wandering that our ancestors chose long ago to become. We in fact still carry the consequences of those sins of our fathers.

And yet, we carry ourselves as if we can somehow master understanding and measure truth and wrestle and wrangle reality into a constructed concept we can perfect. Sad to say that while our arrogance clearly knows no bounds, our willfully playing into that game of ego has rendered us unwilling to even begin seeking the humility needed to muster the first step toward a God we can't know.

As I said yesterday, I think that is one of the biggest reasons so few even try anymore. This verse here is one that's lost its exclamation points over the centuries. Paul wrote it out of an excitement over having been given such an undeserved invitation to venture into the unknowns of God's impossibilities. But today, this truth stands as yet one more reason we have to not even try as we know we'll fail, and we just really hate failing to be proven to be enough.

Yet another sad symptom of a lost soul given over to a mindset mangled by misplaced self-assurance.

But what if we could find that excitement again? What if we awoke each morning grateful for one more chance to learn a little bit more of Him who we can never fully know? What if we dove into Scripture seeking the lessons we know we need to learn in order to somehow someday know more than only ourselves? What if we raced into the unknown with a reckless abandon that expected Him to catch us when we inevitably tripped or got turned around in the fog of it all?

You see, that childlike expectancy is both what we're called to have as well as what we've managed to lose along the way thinking we knew the way or could find the way or had the authority to make the way. We've lost our expectation of things we can't explain. We've misplaced our hope and our trust as we've learned to place them within ourselves and our surroundings. We've grown unable to imagine, and in that we find the beginning of our end.

Because once we lose the ability to imagine, we lose the ability to grow beyond what we think possible, and we will eventually stop trying for anything other than what we already know has already been seen or found or accomplished.

Before long, we'll stop chasing God simply because we know we can never find Him under our own steam along a path we've the luxury of being able to follow.

And so there comes this proverbial 'push comes to shove' moment where we must finally decide whether we go for it knowing we can't make it or miss the opportunity knowing we'd have never made it anyway. Sadly it seems that our "better understanding" of living a life within our "right minds" has caused a great many to settle for not risking the evidence of their inadequacy rather than actually having to walk by a faith they know they can't perfect.

Yes, many would just as soon never walk only because they fear the inevitability of stumbling.

But what if our fears are simply lies we tell ourselves thinking we're keeping ourselves safe? What if we shut out the truths that stand as reasons to try and keep trying no matter how many times we fail or fall short? What if God's purpose of asking for our faith wasn't for us to perfect it but to help us finally see that it's not about us? What if He calls us out of the boat not to prove that we can't walk on water but only so that we can feel Him save us when we sink?

You see, God's not this enigma so many have Him made out to be. I think we're so used to this life of seasons and changes that we expect God to be of the same shifting. But He doesn't change, that much we're promised in Scripture. He doesn't lie, so His truth can be relied upon even above the sciences we think we've figured out. His ways are pure, His Word is literally carved in stone, His Son left yet another stone rolled away.

So no, maybe we can't understand God, but we can see glimpses of Him which offer plenty of proof and reason enough to seek a further measure of this faith we're learning. And that's the whole point. It's an endless lesson, a lifetime spent learning with still plenty left to find or see. It's a journey without a finish line, and while that sparks fear in many, faith is where fear is left behind.

He calls us unto this narrowing road in order for us to learn what matters, what He says matters. And because His wisdom and mercy and wrath are endless and impossible for us to wrap our minds around, the vastness of His existence gives us everything we need to devote our lives fully to seeking more of Him. All because we can never know enough of Him.

You see my point? So often we look to the possible outcome, the final achievement to be had before we even begin. But when it comes to faith, there is no finality. There is no finish line. This is not really about some trophy waiting for us somewhere beyond the chaos of all this uncertainty. All that's there is more opportunity to find Him and all that He is and offers.

We have to stop worrying about how clearly inadequate we are to undertake such a journey as faith. He knows we can't do this, that we're not able, not up to the task. That's why He meets us along the way. That's why we're able to grow our faith, because it demands we do so. And that's why we can aim for this relationship that our faith is meant to be, that it must be.

Because given enough time spent relying on Him rather than trusting in our own ability, or rather inability, that intimacy will flourish because He will increase as we decrease.

No, we can't possibly know all of His truth. We can't memorize all of Scripture. We can't draw a map toward the home we've not yet seen. We can't paint His portrait or snap a selfie with Jesus. But we can set our hearts on trying a little more every single day to learn a little more than we knew the day before. And I personally think that's one of the most amazing parts of all this.

That in the end, He loves us so much that He gave us an entire lifetime to learn more of His love, and then still an eternity to keep experiencing it after we gave our lives to trying to find more of it.

This road will keep us going, moving, growing closer to Him. But we have to be willing to let go of our normal considerations and habitual focuses and instinctual worries over our clear insufficiencies. This isn't about us finding God. It's about us learning that He came to find us.

And we get at least the rest of this day to let our hearts try to imagine why He would do such a thing for a bunch of heathens like us.

In truth, we need this to be impossible so that we will keep trying. Because if it were something we could understand, if He were someone we could physically find, if Christ were still walking amongst us, then we could keep relying on ourselves to find it, to find Him. But instead, He stays always just beyond the horizon so that we must keep walking, because it’s in the walking that we learn to trust in Him as we’re given opportunities to have to do so.

I pray we find this excitement again. That we seek that childlike wonder we once had that had us shooting for the stars, unaware we couldn’t get there from our rooftops. I hope that we find the beauty in believing again, because I think times are coming when we’ll want that ability to imagine something better. Yes, as this world goes one direction, having the courage to go another is becoming of increasing worth.

And it’s only when you’re crazy enough to believe there’s more than can be seen that you’re willing to try for it, even when everyone else thinks you’ve lost your mind.

Maybe we need to lose our minds. Maybe we need to lose our fears. Maybe we need to lose ourselves so that our perspectives can no longer cloud our faith. Maybe we need to set out in search for a God we can’t find in this place. Maybe that’s the only way we can find God in this place, to stop trying to make Him fit down here. He doesn’t need to fit down here. And so maybe our understanding of faith shouldn’t anymore either.

The truth is that we’re all going to reach that place none of us can find someday. And we’re all going to come face to face with the God we could never picture before. I hope that we move into that moment with excitement at the opportunity to see Him in whom we’ve so desperately believed instead of fear or shame or regret for having not taken the chance to try for something that seemed so impossible.

Let Him be impossible, because honestly, we need that more than we know. Possible gets boring, and the last thing we need is a faith that becomes so boring we move on to other more exciting ventures. What’s more exciting than something impossible? It gives us the chance to maybe mess around and learn a bunch of things we never imagined possible before.

And that’s just it. We know what’s possible. That’s why He calls us into the impossible, so that we must learn from Him as He knows more than what we already do.

Yes, He calls us where we cannot go so that our trust can grow. He asks us what we cannot give so that we find that He’s truly given us all we need. He invites us to believe in something bigger than we can find or perfect or contain within feeble minds destined to return to dust. He just asks us to try, not so we can fail, but that we can find He meets us just beyond everything that we already know for sure.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold