I really love swimming, even though I don't get to do it too often anymore. It's one of my favorite things to do, and it's the only form of exercise that has never felt like exercise to me. There's just something that feels good about being out in the water, swimming back and forth in the pool.
When you've been swimming for a while, you start to think more about technique. Usually, this idea of technique doesn't come naturally; someone has to tell you about it so that you get an idea of how to incorporate a certain technique into your stroke or kick.
There's a science behind it all, and I suppose that there are formulas that could explain to me why I swim freestyle faster when I bend my elbow slightly as opposed to keeping it straight. And, I suppose that if someone was patient enough, he or she could explain it all to me. But, I'm not sure that, even with a good deal of explanation, I'd understand it any better than I do right now. The explanation would be a waste of time because:
1. I've never taken a course in physics, so there would be a lot of ground to cover.
2. Even after we'd covered all that ground, even after I had some basic understanding of the science behind the perfect freestyle stroke, I wouldn't be any more interested in how or why my stroke is faster.
Of those two reasons, Number 2 is probably the more important. I don't care how or why I swim faster because of a slightly bent elbow. I just want to swim faster. So, all I really need to know is that bending my elbow will help me accomplish that.
I know that that probably makes me sound like the least curious person ever. Unfortunately, that's not true. I'm plenty (even much too) curious at times. I want to know, not just that I feel a certain way, but why I feel that certain way. I want to know why you, Dear Reader, feel like you do too. However, try as I might, I'm only sometimes capable of figuring out why I feel like I do. I'm even less successful at figuring out other people because I can only go on what they tell me about themselves and how they feel or why they do what they do.
Unlike explaining the speed of a swim stroke, explaining why people act like they act isn't something that can be easily or neatly worked out. Sure, we can make some reasonable speculations, but it's usually anyone's guess what the next thing out of another person's mouth is. I can't figure that out ahead of time, and, really, why would I want to? If I knew with exact precision what someone would say to me, I would have no reason to engage that person in conversation, no reason to question, no reason at all to take time getting to know someone.
Lately, I've been thinking that getting to know God is a lot more like getting to know my neighbor or someone who sits next to me in class than it is like figuring out how to swim faster. Don't get me wrong. I think theology's a pretty nifty thing. It's great to learn more about God because, in many ways, that helps us get to know God. Because, unlike my neighbor or the person sitting next to me in class, I can't look God right in the eye when I talk to Him. There aren't the same kind of context clues I get with a relationship in which I can physically see the other person.
So, learning about God and about Christianity helps with this. Reading my Bible teaches me to learn what I should and should not do. It helps me to see how other people have listened to God's Word and then been blessed. It helps me to see that some people, like Job, followed God's Word but then were cursed...only to have everything restored several times over.
But, that's just it. I always want to get to the blessing part while I'm in the middle of the cursing part. I want to skip to the end of the book (which I honestly never do in real life) and find out how my life will turn out, how my bad days will turn into good days. I want to see, not just in a few years or even by tomorrow but right this very second, how "in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (Romans 8:28). I love God, so I want to see how all these things will be worked for good. And, in my selfishness, I can't help but wonder, "Where's all this good I'm supposed to be seeing? How good is it? Good enough to wait?"
And, to me, that's the trouble with trying to attach a formula to how God does things. We seem often to forget that God tells us,
"'My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9).
I believe that we can learn a lot about God and that we should. Reading the Bible helps to explain so much. But, we can't skip to the end of our lives and figure everything out, just as we can't decide to make God more like us by picking and choosing what to agree with. His ways are not our ways, and, though we can give reasoned and logical arguments for and against many parts of the Bible, it does not change the fact that His ways are higher and, therefore, beyond our means of fully comprehending. Try as we might, there are just some things we will never fully comprehend, and attempting to trump the Word of God with our own understanding of the world and what is right or wrong within it, well, just doesn't work. No matter how reasoned or logical the argument, our simple assertions do nothing to make God's Word more true and certainly nothing to make it false. His ways truly are not our ways, and we cannot begin to guess the plans He has in store for us.
In some ways, I think that knowing all the good stuff would really help, but if we lived our lives looking only to the good, why would we take the time to develop a relationship with God? If we didn't feel hurt or scared or sad, why would we need a God who will comfort us? Having a relationship with God just isn't the same as figuring out how to swim fast. We cannot predict what will happen if we take a particular course of action. We cannot foresee the future by trying to put a formula to God. He just doesn't work like that. However, we can know what action to take by seeking Him through prayer and by reading His Word. Without those, we have no way of even comprehending what we are to do, what choices we are to make.
But I think that we must remember that God is a God of the everyday, that this seeking His Word isn't a one-time only occasion but is something we must be constantly doing. Just as with swimming, we have to keep making strokes through the water so that we stay afloat; swimming, like a relationship with God, is a constant motion--a verb, not a noun.
With swimming, it doesn't much matter why a certain change of the stroke makes me swim faster; adjusting my stroke transforms the act of swimming. And, in listening to God, knowing why He asks me to do something is not so important as following His commands and listening to hear His voice. Doing that transforms my life. And, in many ways, it is the only change that keeps me afloat.
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