You Are A Theologian--Acts 17:23

Day 8

Yesterday, during the second day of The Wait (today is the 3rd day, tomorrow is a diagnostic mammogram that will give us more information about Karen’s condition–whether we like it or not), Karen prayed me through a panic attack while we were walking the beach.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Why is SHE praying for me?

Because, like she prayed, even though we are both prone to doing this, I seem to reach up and try to grab back the unknowable future from God more often.

With more vehemence.

I think nothing of rolling through rapid fire thoughts of future doom and despair and the ultimate sadness of loss and grief in NANOSECONDS.

It’s like I don’t know God at all or trust Him.

Then I read in You Are A Theologian:  An Invitation To Know And Love God Well, about the incommunicable and communicable traits of God and I realized my little panic attacks are rooted in the worship of UNKNOWABLE gods in my life.

Jen Wilkin and J.T. English write:

“He is wonderfully unlike and like us.  We need both of these perspectives to bear His image as we were created to do.  We cannot conform to the image of God we do not know, nor can we worship Him as we were created.  In knowing Him, we know ourselves and our fellow humans rightly.  Our identity is derivative of His.  The more we learn of Him, the more we love Him.  The more we learn of Him, the more we love ourselves and our neighbors as we ought.  And the more we want to proclaim to everyone we meet:  “I know Him!”

God is infinite, sovereign–transcendent.

So for me to reach up and try to steal back knowledge of the future from Him is just plain stupid.

In Acts 17:23, Paul notices something stupid too.  As he is passing through Athens to preach and he notices the Athenians religiosity but also notices they don’t know the gods they worship:

Acts 17:23 For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

Christopher Watkin notes in Biblical Critical Theory that Paul points out to the Athenians that their “religiosity is founded on a fundamental ignorance:  the Athenians do not know the gods they are worshiping.”

If I knew God better, maybe I would stop trying to know the future and stop trying to game plan out–in advance–every conceivable emotion for every conceivable outcome of what is going on with Karen.

In Refreshed:  Devotions For Your Time Away, John Hindley details some of what I might be feeling:

“Although we are created to give praise to the Lord, we so often worship stand-in gods instead…Those who do not know Jesus are still created for joyful, awe-filled worship.  If they do not direct that impulse to the Lord of life, they will direct it to a god of wood or stone:  the latest products of a technology company or the fabulously dressed mannequins of the best fashion brands.”

I’m not so into the best fashion brands, (ask Karen), but I am into having a good time–on the golf course, on the beach, out and about with Karen, just sitting at home watching Netflix and eating soup.

Is my fear of losing those good times and the intimacy Karen and I have enjoyed for almost 3 years an unknowable god that I’m worshiping?

Isn’t that normal?

John Calvin writes in his eponymous Institutes of the Christian Religion:

“The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand.  There is no true knowledge of self apart from the knowledge of God.  The doctrine of God shows us the distance between a transcendent God and His created image bearers, and it simultaneously draws us toward imitation.”

The Father is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

All of that is incomprehensible to me–as He is.

But I am capable of SOME of His attributes–the communicable ones.

I can be loving, good, and merciful.

I can be gracious, faithful, and righteous.

I have a feeling I’m about to learn more about being patient and long-suffering–but that feeling isn’t in my purview and shouldn’t be.

That is God’s alone.

Lord, in a world filled with idols and false gods, help us proclaim the truth of Your Word with boldness and clarity–especially in our very personal daily struggles.

Lord, may we be like Paul and boldly proclaim Your name as the creator of all things and the savior of all who believe.

Amen.