Meditations from Zion

Art by Neon Rauschen

Conceptually, I can’t really wrap my head around omnipotence, infinity, or the universe. And not just because of the vastness, although that plays a part, but mostly because the idea is so very non-human. We are bound by many sets of limitations whether self-imposed or a product of our very nature. We are encased in skin and held up by a skeleton of bones and we are locked in time. Both of these parameters keep us out of the God realms.

 Job answered the Eternal One.
 Job: I know You can do everything;
        nothing You do can be foiled or frustrated.
You asked,
        “Who is this that conceals counsel with empty words void of knowledge?”
    And now I see that I spoke of—but did not comprehend—
        great wonders that are beyond me. I didn’t know. [Job 42:1-3, The Voice]

I didn’t know, Job says. And I say, he couldn’t know. We’ll never know, not while we’re walking the earth.

Oh, we’ll get glimpses of truth, snippets of the secret knowledge, flashes of insight even. But the “why” is not for us to understand. I am reminded of a Corrie Ten Boom story when she was a little girl on a trip with her father and she wanted to carry one of the pieces of luggage and her father denied her. It would be too heavy for her.

And so it is with omnipotence: the ability to see through time and space and change, the beginnings and the ends.

For this reason, we are asked to trust in God, the Eternal One, the Omniscient. It’s the old iced tea commercial, where we are asked to fall backward into the water, without looking. It’s the more recent cliche of choosing to be “all in.”

I am still not there. I don’t understand my own reticence. Somewhere along the way of my life, I have learned skepticism and fear of being fooled or deluded. I continue to test the waters first, walking in slowly, just in case there are surprises underneath, ready to nibble my toes and ankles. I do not plunge.

But I will. I know that too. I’m not sure what that will look like yet, but I am certain that I will have my Job revelation too. And in that day, in the same way that “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part” [Job 42:12a], so I will experience saturation in omnipotence.