We are drawn to the unknown because it tickles the innate sense of curiosity within us to discover and explore. Mystery invites participation, not for the sake of removing what is unknown, but to ignite a passion for learning beyond what is certain and be changed through the process.
Yet it seems like modern Christianity has been reduced to a serious of propositions about which we claim to be certain. I am sorry, but I simply cannot muster up anymore enthusiasm for such a formulaic faith.
I am longing for the gift of uncertainty, a type of profound mystery that welcomes questions, a faith that requires a leap of faith to sustain. I don’t want to be told the answers to life’s pain. I want to live through the darkness and grope around for grace.
In the fast-food version of Christianity, God is packaged in accessible three-step programs, delivered in different ways: skits, sermons, Bible studies, movies, songs, and dance, but the goal is always to serve up the same, bland, sanitized spiritual food.
If I know exactly how the characters of a story are going to end up (repented, reconciled, redeemed), then I cannot feel invested in the journey. These are pre-programmed characters — propaganda puppets. I don’t trust they speak for the God of this crazy big universe.
I long to see through a glass darkly, to see just an outline of The Divine in a fog, because I fear that all of our crisp and clean images of God are mere illusions. When God is definitively contained in creeds and doctrines, we have concluded the search. Then what?
I don’t mind coming together week after week, taking the same old bread and wine, breathing the same, repetitive prayers. But with every rote movement, I want to be scratching over the picture of God we've carved out, because there is something buried deeper to be uncovered, to be sculpted, shaped, and revealed.
I want to be led by the God of Mystery and not by the Idol of Certainty.
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