Wednesdays With Yahweh

The cool night wind pulls at my hair as it slides into the car. The streetlights reflect off the wet pavement as we go beneath dark overpasses. We were simply driving out into the night that ended somewhere over the black horizon. It was just my friends and I sitting in silent wonder and enjoying each other’s company. I look back at them and open my mouth as if to try and explain how free I felt but nothing came out. So instead of grappling with the words that evaded my tongue like birds avoiding the catcher’s net, I just smiled, leaned back in my seat, and floated off. It was a moment of infinite feelings that words could not describe. This was God.

What is God? Who is God? How can one accurately describe God? All of these questions come without the benefit of a proper answer. I believe that He cannot be calculated in our vocabulary; God did not create words so that one day they would describe him. He wanted to keep us in silent wonder. It’s like what Stephen King wrote in The Body:

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out.”

Therefore, God cannot really be a character in some book or the subject of study in a theology class because He has no limits. If He becomes any one of those things, He is deprived of His entire character and all of His traits. Something will be left out. Each person’s idea of God is as unique to them as their DNA structure; built on years of experiences and emotions.

To me, it’s much like Le Corbusier’s famous quote, “God is in the details.” I have found Him in the unexplainable emotions and feelings that have swept me away like colossal undertows. God is in those sweaty palms, those uncomfortable silences, and even when we sit down and just listen to the silence.

So often, I lose sight of Him; He becomes lost in the paint strokes. I reinvent my faith to see if He suddenly becomes relevant again but I always forget that He’s the only constant in this world and I would be able to see Him better standing still. Once I put the pieces together in my heart, God is no longer a bearded Caucasian male wielding the forces of Heaven with an outstretched finger, as romantically portrayed on Michelangelo’s famous ceiling. He becomes less of a dictator and more of Father. After all, God is the ultimate “hopeless romantic;” He hung the stars in the sky so no matter where we are in the world, we can always make our ways back home, back to Him. He even hung His own Son on the cross for our salvation. Sitting all alone in Heaven, He waits day in and day out for us to take a minute or two of our day to talk with Him.

This is what God is to me: the unexplainable yet undeniable Father on whom my heart is sold out. He is the reason I felt safe driving off into the night because no matter where those roads may have taken me, He would be right there by my side until we both reached dawn.