How I commend to you the Mystery!

You keep God afar by insisting that He’s near—by insisting that you know Him. You don’t know Him! You are fooling yourself! You are trading Him in for a lesser god, one that you can comprehend, one that you can predict and control. If you would but let go of what you know, you will find that there is more to be known.

Or if you refuse to let go, then hold on tighter, dig in with your fingernails until you draw blood. Insist that God must be the way you say that you know Him to be. Prove it to yourself. Do you have doubts? Do you have doubts?! Don’t ignore them like a good Christian. Don’t keep them at bay like a faithful follower. Wrestle them down to the ground. Don’t let them mock you anymore. Face the unknown territory, whatever it may be. Do you think that God cannot handle the revelations of science? The existence of other religions? What a weak, pathetic “god” you serve. To find God, you must go into what you fear. You must demand that God make Himself known to you, even if it means He must first die to you. Even if it means going through the darkness, losing your identity, going into the depths of hell.

How can you call yourself a Christian when you are unwilling to go all the way like Jesus did? Do you think that Jesus died so that you wouldn’t have to? How comforting, how convenient. The path to God is not comforting or convenient. So if you can’t bring yourself to let go, then demand comfort and convenience. Demand that God fit into your theology and then go see to it that He does. Force him into your box, fight Him to the death, regardless of which of you die. Weep, gnash your teeth, fall to the floor in desperation, get back up and fight some more.

Eventually, your “faith” will die, and He will win. But when He does, you will have received the keys to the Kingdom. For the first time, you will truly know yourself as a Son or Daughter. You will come to the end and find that it’s just the beginning. You will know wonder and awe for the first time. When you finally fall to the ground, you will find that the ground isn’t there to catch you. You were never meant to be on your feet. You were only meant to fall. You will never know in the way you thought you wanted to know, but you will know in the way you never knew you always wanted to know. You will be given your life.

But from where you stand now, do not be comforted by these words. For God’s sake, I don’t wish you comfort!

How I commend to you the Mystery!