Step To

On that Friday I met with a mentor.  I was fortunate that he came bearing a gift; a key aspect of the mentor's part.  The gift was an insight; he declared me a theologian. 

Now I thought theology was what we called it when we tried to understand God; I considered it the study of the world's view of God.  But he put it differently, he described it as the exercise of seeing the world as God does; the pursuit of God's view of the world.

Another thing; reality.  God's view is the real reality.  He is the Definitive, the Absolute Prototype of being.  He gives meaning to everything, and everything finds its reference and context in Him.  In that image, part of the human role is to name, to identify, and to declare purpose and consequence, pattern and rule in our observation and participation in our world.  We are creation's voice to its creator, and the hands of God to the crops and creatures.  Yet we live in filtered realities.  Our perception is skewed and damped, our range restricted.  It is almost certain that we each live in a false reality, yet freedom lies in the light.

Now how God sees things has also risen out of conversation that I've shared over this topic of the seemingly conflicting rule of God and mess of the world.  If Jesus is the visible image of this invisible God, and He showed unrestrained hostility toward sickness, shame and death, then how is it that sometimes healing doesn't come and death perseveres?  How is it that God is over, in and through it all and the sickness persists?

I can accept the view of the free world, relinquished control and the restrained hand of judgement.  But Love cannot help but intervene.  God cannot help but hear.  I see miracles and I see the divine initiative.  The outworking is utterly personal.  There are no rules, only relationship.  But here's my crux.  I can't work out what His priorities are; the values applied to the decision to act.  I get stuck on the Barney story, which somehow becomes my ensign for all the suffering and disappointment I see.

God is in all, and He feels the pain and dwells in the heart of the victim.  He is the God who Hears, the God who Sees.  Is He the Great Overseer or the Abiding Witness?  What is the default condition of this age?  He refuses to destroy an evil city for the sake of a few good men within.  But I see the action of unconstrained love in Jesus. 

So where are we now?  What is the present reality?  I think we're on the Road Back, but what are the rules, and how is it with the residual enemy?  Finding the realty should resolve the conflicting projections.  Then there is freedom, and in Reality is life.