I don’t understand GOD. I have so many questions, and anytime I get an answer, it usually leaves me with ten more questions than I started with. There has to be so much more to Him than the boxes that I try to keep Him in. But those boxes seem so huge to me that I can’t even fathom or imagine what more there could be.
St. Augustine, in his Confessions, says, “She saw that You had given her more than with all her pitiful weeping she had ever asked.” (He’s referring to his mother’s gladness over his conversion.) While I appreciate what he’s saying in context, I see how these words also reflect so much of my own life. I have begged GOD for so much. I have begged Him to take things and people out of my life and I have begged Him to bring things and people into it. I have begged Him to make me into something other than I am out of a desire for perfection. I have begged Him to make me smarter; to make me nicer; to make me stronger; to make me better. I have begged Him to make my mind wrap around Him because I am uncomfortable with not understanding all that He says and does and is.
And in the midst of all this begging, I forget about praise. I forget to thank Him: for breath and life and the beauty of creation, for books and art and poetry and music, for laughter and tears and all the crazy emotions He’s given, for all the people I love and for all the people who love me. I forget to thank Him for giving me more than I had ever asked for with my pitiful weeping and begging. I ask for so much, and offer no praise or thanksgiving in return. I forget that sometimes the LORD puts us in sucky circumstances to teach us and grow us, like this song talks about. Instead I try to keep Him in a box because I’m more comfortable with Him there. Somehow I picked up the idea that trying to control and contain GOD will lead to a deeper understanding of Him. But seeing a lion in a cage doesn’t compare to seeing it in the wild, where it belongs and can fully demonstrate its power.
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