I started my prayer with those words, and then paused, and then said something like this, “Lord, you must have felt a pang when you first said those words to your disciples, knowing that they weren’t going to see it… at least not fully, or right away.  And you must feel that same pang as you watch us listen now….”   And then I went on to pray a few other things but while I did that, a very numinous sense of Christ’s presence filled me.  Concurrent to my speaking I felt this profound sense of what Jesus must have felt when he knew his disciples wouldn’t fully see; a pang surrounded with patience, grace and love.  On the spot my heart was changed.

Earlier that evening, I’d confessed to a friend how sick and tired I was of my trying to control everything; especially the things of my faith. What kind of person gets pissed off if another doesn’t quite see things the way they do?  Has Christ ever acted in this way toward me?  I’m now beginning to wonder if the biggest impediment to clearly communicating this ‘God moving in all things vision’ is me.

And then, trumping all of these common graces, the Centurion blows everyone away by demonstrating more faith than anyone Jesus has ever met before (common grace #5) (read the story for the details).  And yet, for all we know, his reaching out to Jesus could have been nothing more than a pragmatic request born out of desperation. We don’t know.  And maybe that’s all it takes when it comes to expressing faith in Jesus.  There’s no 4 step process you need to undergo, or a particular prayer you need to pray , just that thing inside of you that loves a good friend, that knows some people who know this guy who may be able to help.

Where is the line between God’s Spirit moving in commonly gracious ways and special/saving ways? How can an early move of the Spirit building a synagogue be any less saving than that same Spirit leading a person to pray, “How can I be saved?”

This calling is not just biological. We also called to fill the earth with human culture; with art, sport, science, good government, and healthy, just economies.

So when I read, “births are where the jobs are,” my first thought was that biological flourishing is tied to economic flourishing.  When work is good, babies are concieved and born.  When the economic sphere is just right, the family sphere is just right. When all things job-wise are in balance, human biological growth rates are in balance… and everybody flourishes.

God wants ‘all things’ made new (“I am making all things new” Jesus in Revelation 21:5).  And we need all things made new in order for humanity to fully flourish.  The statistics clearly affirm this fact; growth rates in economically booming Alberta are 1.9 births/woman vs the national average of 1.67 births per woman.

Earlier this week, at Trinity Western University, someone asked me, “But doesn’t God just want to save people… save souls?” They were chaffing at my insistence that God wants music, film, hockey and science to be made new, to multiply, to fill the earth.  The two, of course, are not mutually exclusive.  I flourish when I listen to great music, play life giving games, discover new realities, and have a great job!  And that’s why I think heaven’s gonna have all those things.

The Globe article offered a foretaste of that new earth place, “Keith and Andria Despins were looking for a fresh start when Mr. Despin’s job at a pulp mill in Manitoba was in doubt. They considered Edmonton. House prices seemed high, but Beaumont, 20 minutes south had it all: a small town feel, French immersion, affordable housing and a booming economy… ‘We ended up checking it out, and we loved it,’ Ms Despins says. ‘It’s definitely changed a lot since we moved here, but it’s great. There’s always new families moving into the community, so there’s always new people to meet, and there’s so many young kids. The town is geared to young kids.’” (Western Growth brings Economic Momentum, G & M, Feb 9th, 2012)

“And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls at play….All this may seem impossible to you now… But do you think this is impossible for me, the LORD Almighty?”  Zechariah 8:5-6

Many times I’ve spoken to people about the two book vision of New Hope Church.  And many times I’ve wondered why they don’t get as excited about it as I am (as we are!). In my mind, if you really do believe that Christ speaks through creation (nature and human nature and the cultural products of human nature), then shouldn’t that mean that ever single activity, event, and experience in life is engaged with an attentiveness that is worthy of his glory?  If we really believe that Jesus could be saying something to us right now – as we study, read, work, play, walk, govern, discover, facebook, text, teach, look, hear, touch and think – then what’s stopping us from whole heartedly engaging a worlview that resurrects the reading of the book of creation?

If the Spirit of Christ is authoring all truth right now, then why isn’t the whole church going crazy with the news and re-tooling everything? Jesus is whispering something at the office, in the classroom, through the tree outside your window… why aren’t you on your knees?  His Spirit is singing “Glory!” through everything that surrounds you… why aren’t you telling everybody about this?  Jesus is here, right now, speaking, unveiling, impressing, inspiring, offering his wisdom, sharing his love… why aren’t you listening?

Do you really believe that Jesus speaks through his creation?  Not just in theory, but in practice?  Then why aren’t you changing everything?

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6:3

This happens all the time.  Wherever I’ve been travelling lately, people express an interest to get involved; the geology prof from Calvin College, the chem prof from Colorado State University, Christian film critics who I connect with online, the geology student in my workshop last Saturday.  I find this so amazing…. selfishly, in terms of the exegetic resource I get to tap into, and more broadly, in terms of the kingdom implications of this two book vision.  Evidently people of faith are very eager to discern God’s words in their worlds.

How many scientists, business persons, engineers, artists, designers, marketers, mechanics, students and teachers are out there in other churches; dying to do the same thing with their faith, with their pastors?

2. They’ve never considered that God speaks through creation.

3. They can’t hear what God is saying through creation.

4. They don’t know how to preach a creation text.

5. They’re afraid they’ll dishonour God’s other book – the bible – if they preach creation.

6. They think the creation text is evil (of the world).

7. They think they are preaching creation when they’re only preaching illustrations.

Jesus is speaking throughout creation: what if we listened?

A proposal for renewal in the Christian Reformed Church of North America

“I think I see what you are doing. I’ve spent my entire life connecting the Jesus of the New Testament to the Jesus of the Old Testament. You are connecting the Jesus of the New Testament to the resurrected Jesus today.” Dr. Sidney Greidanus, Old Testament and Preaching Professor emeritus, Calvin Seminary, in response to my talk about the vision of New Hope CRC in Calgary, at the CRC sesquicentennial conference at Calvin College, 2007

What if the Christian Reformed Church is meant to be a church that connects the Jesus of the bible to the resurrected Jesus today?  What if our calling is to tie what he said then to what he’s saying now?

In the CRC, we’ve always believed in a God who reveals himself through two books; the bible and creation (Belgic Confession Art. 2).  We hold a very high view of the Holy Spirit; that it authors all truth (Calvin), moves in commonly gracious ways (Kuyper), and holds the entire cosmos together. We have a very big view of God’s providence and sovereignty, that not a hair can fall from our heads apart from his will (Q and A #1).  Historically, our denomination has had the theological imagination to creatively engage a God who reveals himself through history, speaks through general revelation, and whose nature is reflected in and through his image bearing human beings.

What would happen if the CRC acted on what we say we believe?

We believe that Jesus resurrected from the dead and that he breathed his eye opening, ear clearing Spirit upon us. We believe that all things were made through him (John 1:1-3), are held together in him (Col. 1:15-23) and, even now, are being made new by him (Rev. 21:5).  We believe that Jesus is now enthroned, seated at the right hand of God, and is the ruler over all things. Our view of the Lordship of Jesus Christ is cosmic in its proportions; and it impacts everything.

Because of this way of viewing the world, we can watch a powerfully redemptive Academy Award winning movie like Crash and know that its truth was authored by his Spirit, as though the film were a parable.  We can experience the ecstasy of victory at an NFL playoff game, and understand that the splendour of that moment is a foretaste of a communal glory we’ll one day know perfectly. We can observe the scientific world as it builds a Large Hadron Collider, and see this huge science experiment as a kind of icon, revealing the mind of the Jesus who created the universe in the first place. We can take note of how an accountant feels about the just-rightness of financial reconciliation, of how a mechanic experiences the satisfaction of automotive restoration, or of how an entrepreneur takes ‘aha’ delight in creating something out of nothing, and know that it’s the Spirit of Jesus Christ who has sponsored the truth and goodness inherent in these created things.

More than that; in all of these commonly gracious creational places, we can experience the real time, right now, personal, revelatory presence of Jesus Christ.

Jesus created the CRC church the way he did; with its unique creation embracing, providential and sovereign worldview. What if he did this so that we could lead the Church in recognizing that he is revealing himself everywhere?

Sometimes I wonder if this is exactly what he’s doing at New Hope CRC here in Calgary. Commenting on our church’s two book vision (via a book endorsement), former Calvin Seminary president, Neal Plantinga, wrote, “Its center is a bright, bold vision of a God who is speaking to us everywhere, every day, through every sense.  Van Sloten’s cry of the heart is just this: in God’s name, pay attention!”

I think now is the time for the CRC to stand up and say, “Pay attention!”

And I think this cry needs to come from all of our pulpits; the seminary offering a whole new set of courses exploring creational exegesis, theology and preaching, church pastors actively reading and preaching both of God’s revelatory books, our academic institutions continuing to do what they already do but, for the first time ever, seeing their graduates enthusiastically participate in the church as co-exegetes in the preacherhood of all believers (engineering grads helping write engineering sermons, science grads developing science discipleship courses, artists leading the worship arts), denominational agencies retooling all that they do; Home Missions, Back to God, CRWRC, Faith Alive, World Missions, helping churches engage a God who’s already out there, moving and speaking in the world.

What if this is the idea around which both established and new churches can come?

Not some abstract theological construct or worldview, but the here and now belief that Jesus really does mean for us to know and experience him in all things – at work, in the theatre, on the field, in the lab, in our relationships – all the time!  Imagine a church filled with people whose every moment is attuned to the presence and glory of God.  This would be attractive.  This would be meaningful.  This would grow God’s church.

Increasingly, I am convinced that God has always meant for his followers to know him via the reading of both of his books.  I think these books are meant to co-illumine one another – shine light on each other -  creation saying what only creation can uniquely say alongside the bible saying what only the bible can uniquely say. I believe that we can only know God fully when we engage the whole counsel of his revelation.  If the new earth is going to be a place where we know God in all things – including our work, relationships, and in city living (Is. 65:17-25, Rev. 22)  - then I think we ought to be actively living into, and preparing for, that day now.

This way of engaging God’s world will bring a new humility to the church (as we learn to listen and follow, instead of dictate and prescribe), along with a powerful sense of cultural relevance. Imagine CRC churches everywhere donning the spectacles of the scriptures (Calvin), coming alongside an unbelieving world and pointing out God’s creational presence and truth in all things, showing that the beauty, meaning, significance and truth that is so inspiring in creation has a Maker, an Author and a Redeemer.

Context

Over the past few decades the CRC has tried to become an outreaching church via the implementation of many non-indigenous, ‘evangelical’ methodologies.  And it hasn’t worked. Our Reformed identity has faded, the denomination’s numbers have dropped and our young adults are disappearing fast. Gaps have grown between church plants, established churches and the seminary.

I think one of the reasons this is happening is that our way of reaching out to the world is not commensurate with who we are. It doesn’t leave enough room for how sovereign our view of God is. Reading and responding to what the Sprit of Jesus Christ is already speaking and doing in the world – does!

The Holy Spirit is already moving in powerfully missional ways throughout God’s world.  We already have the theology to see and engage these holy movements.  What we need to do now is actively engage and live into what we already believe.

I’ve preached on giving many times before, each time via a similar process;

1. Source the relevant bible texts on the topic.

2. Read, study and wrestle with them until they whisper their truths.

3. Try to craft those truths into some kind of coherent sermon.

I want to approach the topic differently this week, starting with what actually happens in the giving moment (believing God is very much present and at work at the time).  And this is where I could use some ‘preacherhood of all believers’ help.  Here are my exegetical questions;

“If you could put words around the ‘just right’ feeling you feel in the moment of giving, what would they be?  What do you love about giving?”

If you have any thoughts please comment.

2. When you get the part of her email that says, “Scientists have irrefutably shown that Darwin wasn’t quite correct… your environment can change your genes, and these changes are heritable,” be reminded of that part of the second commandment that says, “…to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me.”

3. Think, “hey, that’ll preach!”

4. Apply for a $30,000. grant from the John Templeton foundation to preach 5 sermons on faith and science and recieve grant monies to take the entire church to your city’s new science centre so that you can preach the epigenetics sermon there and then gift the congregation with time to explore the world of science for themselves.

5. Meet with the epigenetics scientist and a university science grad several times and go to school on them.

6. Take the risk and say, “As I’ve engaged the epigenetics text, this is the bible passage that comes to mind for me… what do you think?”

7. Hear the scientist excitedly say, “That would be perfect actually.”

8. Make plans to preach (and prepare) the sermon in two parts; 10 minutes on Epigenetics 101, and 25 minutes as a theological response.

9. Meet together the day before preaching and ‘preach each other’s part’ to each other. Get excited about the perfect fit. Assuage the scientist’s anxiety about being too sciency. Calm the pastor’s nerves about communicating the science correctly.

10. Show up at the science centre with a crowd that is twice the size of a normal Sunday service, and preach Christ; through the book of epigenetics and the book of the bible. Pray for epiphanies to happen.

(11. Postscript: And here’s how the message turned out – http://vimeo.com/35423943 )

Last night, over dinner, I had a minor clash with my oldest son.  I said something dumb and he shot back with a pretty harsh response (what we call a Bilbo moment – you know, like how Bilbo violently reacted when Frodo wouldn’t let him hold the ring again).  I tried to bring the matter up after dinner, but to no avail.  Tom wasn’t interested.  Normally in the past I would have pushed things, tried to assert my parental authority, force the issue out into the open.  I knew what the problem was; often I try to over control people and situations, and don’t give others enough time, space or respect. I do it way too much, and I wanted to talk with Tom so that I could say sorry (and also, to be honest, to double check and see if I still had my son’s respect).

Uncharacteristically I decided to let it go.  No use trying to push matters when it comes to dealing with your control issues.

So this morning we resolved the matter another way. First I offered to drive Tom to school (with no intent whatsoever of talking about things).  Then, en route, we listen to a radio news story about greenhouse gas emissions, oil-sands and pipelines. I turned to Tom and said, “I don’t disagree with global warming, nor do I disagree with the fact that human activity is contributing to it. What I struggle with is the frantic response that presupposes that God hasn’t built any plasticity into this world. A friend just told me about a PBS program that talked about how the earth has adapted to significant sun temperature increases over the past 10,000 years. Apparently the earth has some capacity to adapt.”  The implication I was making was that, perhaps God has a few creational safety mechanisms built into the system. So, have some faith people!

Tom responded, “I think this new class I’m about to start is going to deal with these kinds of issues.” To which I said, “Well then you can tell your prof that your dad was talking to guy who watched a PBS special….”   We both laughed figuring I was probably full of it.  And then I knew we were OK;  he still loves and respects his dad.

An hour later I got a text from Tom (while he was still in his new class),

(TOM)  “Today I learned how the earth adapts to the brighter sun.”

(ME)  “Of course you did. I adapt to a brighter son all the time!  : )  Love.”

(TOM) “Love”

My text was Colossians 1:15-20.  The passage speaks of the supremacy of Christ in both creation and the church.  The phrase that continues to weigh on me is, “all things have been created through him and for him.”  All things are made through Christ and for Christ.

The point I made in the message was that, if everything is made through Christ, we’re going to have to read/engage all things in order to fully understand who he is. Everything there is to know about who Jesus is will only be known as we read the whole universe (which was made through him – Hebrews 1:2).  It’s takes a whole universe to give full expression to who Jesus is.  And it will take the knowledge of every square inch of the universe’s wisdom, beauty and truth to give Christ the glory, honour and praise due his name.  Only a word as big as the universe is big enough to elicit enough praise to affirm just how much everything is for him.  Anyways, it all just kind of blew me away.

Through him and for him… five words that seem to hold it all when it comes to defining what we’re doing here at New Hope Church.  Everything I am and do comes as a gift from him. It’s all made through him, co-created with him, and worshipfully for him.

And our calling is to live in the mystical space between through and for.  I feel like I need to take on a new spiritual discipline; with every breath, at every task, with all my heart and soul, have the words ‘through you and for you’ running through all of my being.

Here’s the message if you’re interested.

I will never forget the day I experienced Van Gogh’s truth for myself.

I had just parked my car on the top floor of a downtown parking garage, donned my Harry Rosen suit jacket, grabbed my brief case and was headed for the stairs (I was working as Director of Development for a downtown London, Ontario office building project at the time).

As I entered the stairwell I ran into a problem.  A disheveled old street person was standing in the middle of the top step…  blocking my way. He looked terrible and smelled even worse. I had the sense he’d slept there that night.

“I’ve got to get by him,” I thought.  But when I asked him to move, he was unresponsive; totally incoherent.

“But I’ve got to get to work.”  So I held my breath, edged my way along the stairwell’s concrete wall and squeezed by him.  Clear.  When I got down to the first landing I took one last look at the poor guy.  He was teetering so badly I thought he was going to take a nosedive.

Then I faced a moment of truth. “I’ve got to get to work, I’ve got things to do… but if I leave guy in this predicament he’s going kill himself.”

“I need to help him.”  But there was no way I wanted to walk him down six floors… and I certainly wasn’t going to carry him.  So I retraced my steps, edged by him again, and went and got my car.

After opening the passenger door (and window), I helped him in, shut the door and then got into the driver’s side. No sooner had I started heading toward the down ramp, the old guy fell over into my lap! I hit the brakes.  “How am I going to do this?” I thought.  I came up with a plan.

Gingerly I lifted his head up and then pushed him over toward the passenger door window.  Propping him up with my right arm I headed toward the down ramp.  It was one of those spiral ones.  So I figured that if I took it real fast the centrifugal force would keep his body upright and away from me.  It worked.

When we got to the ground floor, my conscience hit me again and I thought that the least I could do was give the guy a ride home.  So I paid the $12. fixed day rate for my five minute stay and headed out onto the street.

The moment we hit the pavement the old man wakes up. Incredibly, he’s now lucid and able to carry on a conversation.  I asked him what his name was.

“Wendell Hathaway,” he replied.

“Where you from Wendell?”

“Out east.”

“What brought you to London?”

“Work… I used to work in construction.”

“Do you have any family?”

“Used to…  I was married…  and I also have two kids.”

There was a 30 second pause.  “A wife and two kids” I thought, “and now this heartbreaking life?  How tragic.”

We talked a bit more about his life; where he grew up, when he got married and how his kids were baptized in the Catholic church.

“Hey Wendell, it’s starting to rain, where do you live, I’ll drive you home.”

“I live at the men’s mission just down the street.”

“Ok, I’ll take you there…”

A few minutes later we pulled into the mission parking lot and I said my goodbyes.  But then, out of nowhere, Wendell decided he doesn’t want to get out of the car.  He mumbled something about how hated living at the mission.  I could tell he hated his life.

But I’ve got to get back to work.

So I got out of the car, went to his door and tried to help him out. But, like a little kid refusing to budge, he wouldn’t move.  After a few minutes of pleading he eventually fell out of the car, onto the asphalt parking lot, and started crying.

By now it was raining quite heavily. My suit was getting soaked and Wendell wasn’t moving.  So I knelt down and tried to pick him up.  No luck.  So there I was, stuck, kneeling in this men’s mission parking lot, holding this street guy’s head in my arms in the pouring rain.

What a mess.  But then I looked into his eyes.

They were a piercing, deep ice blue. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed them until then.  I couldn’t stop staring.  And as I did I started to feel a deeper sense of empathy and compassion for the man. His life story started to flash in front of my eyes.  I thought about how proud his mom must have felt when she first looked into those eyes when he was a baby, about how his wife was in love with those eyes on their wedding day, and about his children proudly looked up into the eyes of their dad as he held them.

And then I started crying. This is not way things are supposed to be.

Wendell crying, me crying, and in some strange cosmic sense God crying through the rain.

It all seemed pretty hopeless, until something quite mystical happened; something I’d never experienced before or since.  As I was looking into Wendell’s eyes, there was this moment where it felt as though his eyes became transparent and I was looking into Christ’s.

For a second I lost my breath, time disappeared and every part of me trembled.  And for a moment everything was Christ.  Christ in me holding Christ in him, surrounded by a world that was mysteriously held by Christ.

Van Gogh was right. There was more glory in Wendell’s eyes that day than any cathedral could ever hold.

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Jesus in Matthew 25:40, TNIV

Three weeks ago a moral-ethical warning shot came over the bow of my life. It left me shaking for days. But for the grace of God.  And then, two weeks ago, our son Edward gave us the scare of a lifetime.

Fran and I were watching a movie in our basement when we heard Eddy thumping down the stairs. Turning to greet him we were horrified to see that he’d tied several pieces of string/rope around his neck (he was trying to emulate Jacob Marley’s chains from A Christmas Carol). He couldn’t undo the knots; leaving him with an inch or so of breathing room. As we quickly untied him, all we could think of was how this could have turned out so much differently. What if he tried to free himself… and tightened the cords?  I still shake at that possibility.

Once the strings were removed, and after we’d explained  how dangerous this was to Edward, all I could say and pray was, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot  about how much God holds my life. I don’t think I have any idea how protected, kept and sustained I am; my family is, our church is, this world  is. Theologian John Calvin said that were God to take his hand off the universe for even a second, everything would collapse.

Right now I know this to be true.  My prayer is that I don’t forget in the new year ahead. Every day should be filled with thanks, for everything that continues to go so right.

God coming to us is a powerful affirmation of love leaning in.

Think about the best listener you’ve ever trusted yourself with – a parent, a friend, a counsellor – and now look through them, to the God who gifted them to you, who made them with the capacity to hear, who gave them compassion, patience and wisdom, and who, being timeless, has all the time in the world.

Reading well-known Canadian psychiatrist, Robin Menzies’ obituary this morning, I couldn’t help but think about how God attends to us. “I give my patients the service of listening to them. I don’t just go through the motions. I am their friend.” (Globe and Mail, Dec 24th, 2011) “I have called you friends.” (Jesus to his disciples in John 15:15, TNIV)

Sometimes when I pray, it’s almost as though I can see Jesus’ face up close, his eyes staring back into mine. The sense of being heard is so intimately palpable. He is with me… listening. God came to us so that Jesus could have ears.

And when he listens I’m empowered.  In being understood, I understand myself, through his respect I find self respect; I’m free to “speak openly, face truth and dare growth.”

There’s a dearth of listeners in our world today.  And yet, God through Christ, is listening all the time.

What was it like for Jesus to hear human voices through human ears? What can human  listeners teach us about how he hears us right now?

As soon as I read these words, I thought, “So is God.”

Engineers are made in the image of a God who appreciates the concrete, created reason, is analytical, understands the facts of a situation, and knows how things work.  God made a lot of matter.  Material nature clearly matters to him. God imagined the nature of all reality.  And I think an engineer’s imagination is ultimately meant to connect to the Maker-of-all-things’ imagination. Via curiosity, ingenuity and a passion to discover how things work, or how they can work, an engineer can connect to the mind of God.

The obituary went on to say that, “throughout his life, he would pick up interesting things in nature, or useful widgets found abandoned.  He would repair or re-purpose broken down old things…”  Sounds pretty God-like here as well.  Maybe one of the ways God does that is by showing us just how much he made us like himself.

I love that I can read an obituary like this and end up knowing and loving God a bit more.  Thinking about the nature of an engineer I encounter God’s nature. And as I do this, it feels like worship.  I recognize a bit more of God’s worth.

Obits are a great place to learn about how human beings image God (the Imago Dei). Read carefully, they unpack the sense of the divinity (sensus divinitatis) that resides in us all.

[Image from Birdscalgary.wordpress.com]

There must have been thousands of them, swarming and swooping right in front of our picture window.  It was avian pandemonium.  Our trees were filled, the hedge alone hosted a hundred or so, and the whole of the visual space looking out our window must have been 50% wings, feathers and beaks. Their fluttering and trilling was cacophonous, joyous, jubilant.  Our local magpies didn’t know where to fly or what to do. They all just huddled close together in the Aspen tree across the street.

The scene was awe inspiring.  Wondrous. A gift.  My heart is still racing.  And to think that the whole experience just flew in out of nowhere. You’ve got to love the serendipity of that… “look at the birds of the air.”  I didn’t even have time, or think, to get my camera out at first.  By the time I did, most of our visitors were long gone.  But the memory’s not.  After googling a description of the bird we discovered that they were Bohemian Waxwings.  Apparently they are indigenous to Alberta – who knew?

Last week I posted that I was thinking of preaching a sermon series on animals.  Perhaps this was an audition?  Here they are flying away…

To the biggest theological question imaginable – If God is good, then why is their evil in our world? – God responds with the best answer possible (if God is answering then you’ve got to presume this) and says, ‘Look at the mysteries of the material world around you Job… all of this was made by me… all of this is being held by me… and all of it is beyond your understanding.’  God doesn’t offer a rational explanation/theodicy (“you learn through pain Job, it’s a consequence of free will, etc…), he comes back with the mysteries of the material order.  And the mysteries that are at the end of every created thing (now even as then) leave him is a place that is much nearer to God, closer to the answer  A place of ecstasy and glory where all you’re left to do is put your hand over your mouth in wonder.

Large Hadron Collider particle physicists know this place, as do poets and artists.

Again, God’s best answer for the problem of pain (to Job) is creation. God opens our hearts through the doors of mystery, awe and wonder, and as we are faced with/observe and read the world around us, we see.

And this is where, what we do at New Hope Church, has it’s starting point.  We don’t just stop at the wonder/awe/’wow-there-must-be-a-God‘ place, we go further and ask, ‘What does this creational beauty tell us about who you are God?’   What does nature’s nature say about your nature? What does human nature say about your nature?

I’m gonna use this Job story as the introduction for a someday book on Faith and Science.