The Rhythm of the Absolute

Defining the way you see the world is indeed like going to an eye doctor. To understand what type of prescription you need to see the world clearly, you must first determine the parameters with which you view it in the first place. My goal is first to communicate how I see the world, secondly why I came to see the world that way, and thirdly how it affects my daily life. This is a proverbial worldview check-up if you will. An untangling of the way I perceive this world, and how causes me to engage in the reality around me,

When learning how to communicate the fundamentals, I think it best to keep it as simple, yet as poignant as possible. I believe the Nicene Creed captures the essence of this best:

We BELIEVE in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.

Amen. (Society of Archbishop Justus, 2007)

Continuing along the same vein of simple speak, to unpack this a bit, I believe that God “the infinite and personal (triune), transcendent and immanent, omniscient, sovereign, and good being who created the universe” (Sire, 2004 p 83), desires the very thing that we cannot do, live in communion with Him. God is completely good and we are on our best days (although created to be image bearers of God’s glory) are melded with sin; because of this we are unable to even stand in His presence. To right this, God sent His son Jesus to live as man, perfectly and then to die as a sacrifice for humankind’s sin nature. The beauty of this story is that after three days of death, He came to life again, giving us the hope of redemption.

Throughout the timeline of the bible there was woven into the tapestry of the story the specific tale of restoration and regeneration. Jesus was foretold and shown to us before he ever stepped into humanity. This makes every piece of History integral to our understanding of who God is and what truth is. I believe that God is Truth and taking him out of the framework of linear history or truth makes no sense.

“All knowledge forms one whole, because its subject matter is one; for the universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together that we cannot separate off portion from portion, and operation from operation, except by mental abstraction.” (Sire. p.55)

Thus, the way to understand life is to understand God. This long-term goal and lifetime adventure enables truth to be understood and attained. Because we are in right relationship with God, we now are able to understand right from left, up from down, right from wrong. The understanding that comes from the cognitive reality of God allows us to agree that there is absolute truth.

The framework that I believe as truth, was not always my own. There are many “reasons” why I came to this understanding, but only one that matters here. James Sire relates John Calvin’s view of this idea:

There exists in the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of his Godhead, the memory of which he constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that he is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship him nor consecrate their lives to his service. (Sire, 2004 p. 80)

 

God made man in his image and inside of us, there is a void that we cannot fill. We were made for God and because of this, our world is not right until we respond to that reality. There are three distinct ways of interacting with the idea of God: accept it, ignore it, or refuse it. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” Psalm 19:1 ESV, 2010). This reality haunts us throughout our life. Every glory filled sunset, every thunderous cascading waterfall, every star filled night sky speaks of the glory of God. It fills a piece of this void and causes us to desire the full version. We yearn for God and He like a veracious lover woos us completely. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:9:11, ESV, 2010).

Through a journey of adventure in nature, I found an adoration that I could not contain. Why was I drawn to these things? Why did they well up emotion inside of me with no notice? What language of magnificence was this that spoke directly to my soul? These questions could not be answered by the atheist mindset that I had come to rest in. There was no answer for the divine stirrings inside of me. The only thing that fit was the vision of a Lover calling my need for Him to my direct attention. My eyes were opened and for the first time Jesus was more than a crude crucifix. Jesus stepped into my life with a weight of Truth that is still sending vibrations through my reality. This beautiful enactment of the most precious love story that we have ever encountered is offered to us all. I believe emphatically in this reality, this love was irresistible; my soul had no other response than to say yes.

I could not live without this truth as my own epicenter. This “yes” interacts with every facet of my life. When I found this love story I was a base and vile creature, yet when one is met with irrefutable love, the understanding of life’s value begins to unfold. “Once we capture even a partial understanding of the true character of God, the response is a mixture of awe, fear, joy, and delight” (Philips, Brown, Stonestreet, 2008 p.211). I had no other response than to let my entire life become worship. Every breath I take speaks the name of God, thus there is a holistic response to the reality of God. The food I choose to eat, the money I get to spend, the people I have the honor of interacting with and even the classes I take in school are all challenged by the nature of God welling up inside of me. I am an image bearer in the process of restoration. All that I do begins to reflect this.

Life is rhythmic, everywhere we look we see this in action: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter; Birth, Life, Death; the beat of our hearts; the rhythm in our breath; everything speaks of this cosmic rhythm. We first find it in Genesis, in the story of creation. God speaks to life the rhythm of our souls. I define my life before I met Christ as chaos at best. There was no rhythm, no sense of established tempo, and truthfully no reason to try to attain one. After the Lord brought me to life, I finally felt the beat of my heart move in tempo with this cosmic cadence.  Eugene Peterson speaks of this reality and it begs us all to take thought:

These Genesis work-rhythms are reproduced in our lives and brought to focus in the Sabbath-rest command that enables our participation. When we walk out of the place of worship, we walk with fresh recognizing eyes and a re-created obedient heart into the world in which we are God’s image participation in God’s creation work. Everything we see, touch, feel, and taste carries within it the rhythms of “And God said…and it was so…and it was good…” We are more deeply in and at home in the creation than ever. (Peterson, 2005 p.71)

We are called to life. I am now like a moth fighting to get closer to the flame and I will do whatever I can to ensure this happens. My thoughts, my actions, my friendships, my work ethics all revolve around this magnificence. This light drives me and nothing will stop me from reaching it. With forceful resolve and intentional direction, I aim for Christ. There is nothing in my own life that is not shaped by this.

The way in which I see the world begs a sense of trust in the Unseen. I have faith in something bigger than I could ever imagine. Absolute Truth holds sway to what I believe and why and how this affects life, as I understand it. There is a sense of a deep and substantial foundation that is set for the rest of my time here on earth. A solid reminder of a bigger story that I have the honor of gracing the pages of. What a phenomenal tale of regeneration, hope, and ultimate restoration. I am humbled and awestruck that I get to see through this lens of reality and live out a life in response to it.

References

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version: the ESV study Bible. (2010). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Peterson, E. H. . (2005). Christ plays in tne thousand places: a conversation in spritiual theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Phillips, W. G., Brown, W., & Stonestreet, J. (2008). Making sense of your world: A biblical worldview (2^nd ed.). Salem, WI: Sheffield Publishing Company.

Sire, J. W. (2004). Naming the elephant: worldview as a concept. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Society of Archbishop Justus (2007, April 15). The nicene creed. Retrieved from http://anglicansonline.org/basics/nicene.html