Indescribable

 Yesterday I was coming home in the car at about half three in the afternoon.  The sky was amazing.  I live near a range of hills which seem to affect the skies alot and yesterday there were fluffy white clouds in a line on the left hand side of the range of hills and a brooding mass of dark grey clouds on the right hand side of the hills, with an awesome splash of gold both above and underneath them on the horizon as the sun was making its way to the West.    So often as Im driving in Northern Ireland I am caught by the beauty of the skies and wish I could paint them.  Or even photograph them.   But I know that there would be little point in even trying as there is no way a manufacturing process can capture the true glory of what can be seen by the naked eye.   As I was thinking this I heard the words ' eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard nor has it entered into the heart of man.....'  ( funny isnt it how sometimes scripture comes to you in the King James version even though its a translation you dont use and never read ?  :) ) 1 Cor 2:9 .  It dawned on me that in the same way a photograph can never do justice to a sunset - no matter how talented the photographer - in the same way our descriptions and understanding of God can't come anywhere close to the actual glory and majesty and beauty of His presence.




I love the fact that Moses had to be hidden in a cleft in the rock when God passed by because his physical human body would not have been able to withstand the shock of the power of glory manifest had God just turned up in front of him.  I imagine something of the magnitude of a nuclear blast emanating from the presence of God, which I'm pretty sure God toned down significantly when He was giving the commandments on the mountain top.  If He hadn't Moses wouldn't have survived.


The verses in 1 Corinthians tell us that despite the fact that they are beyond imagining, by the spirit we are able to grasp God's eternal plans and purposes for us.  Who would have ever conceived or imagined that God would come to earth as a baby, live, minister, teach and die among us to bring us into relationship with our Father?  Its inconceivable.  It makes no sense.  To the Jews it was downright offensive.  But the Holy Spirit reveals our sonship to us and we suddenly know the unknowable and believe the incredible.   God 's outrageous plan makes sense when it is brought to us by His Spirit and revealed as the truth.   But I wonder if that revelation is a bit like the photograph of the sunset or the painting of the brooding magnificent skies.    If we have never seen a sunset then a photograph of one will be amazing to us.  We will marvel at the colours and the forms and will thrill to the evident beauty on the page.  But when we see an actual sunset then our appetite for the photo will vanish.  Because there is no comparison.

None of us will ever go into space.  But thanks to the Hubble telescope and others we can get a glimpse into the amazing and awesome expanse of the heavens, gasp at its beauty and feel that we know a little of what the universe is like.  We can watch programmes on the telly or even immerse ourselves in IMAX cinema experiences to get a flavour of what it might be like up there.  But none of that can give us anything but the tiniest inkling of what the universe is really like.   We might think we have an idea.  But we don't really   


Yesterday when I was marvelling at the beauty of the sun on the clouds and the mountains on the horizon I just got a sense of how little I know of God.  Now I see as in a mirror, darkly.  I hear through a translator.  I experience through a creased and cracked soul in an imperfect and failing body.   But then....   ah, then....... 

He is beyond imagining.

He is worthy of all praise.



PS. One good thing : didnt really hear anything ' good' to do today. So I just tried to be a good employee and a good Mum and wife.  

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