On the other hand

....The problem being, of course, that when Jesus talks and does (and remember He's the full explanation of the Father), He talks and acts to and towards individuals. The feeling mentioned yesterday of being a little lost next to the master plan of God, a minor atom in a universe of minor atoms, is really not a nice feeling. As opposed to feeling insignificant and confused in the face of Who He Is, I want to feel insignificant and whole in the face of Who He Is. Freedom and healing, after all, being a primary MO of this Deity, as far as we have been able to determine.

That's another thing: we keep writing books about the ultimate purpose of God, as if everyone else's ideas have somehow fallen short. After all, knowledge keeps accumulating so we should be getting smarter, right? Well, yeah. Unless, of course, we're dealing with an omnipotent, omniscient, self-existent Being who invented the rules we are trying desperately to understand. I'm going to reference Stargate again because it keeps helping. Every time they go to a different planet, they encounter truly alien paradigms. The paradigm may only be a system of government or technology, or then again it may be actual physiology or physics. Often they create problems they don't have the base to fix. (For example, how does one resuscitate an alien who's "heart", it turns out, is not only in the wrong place, but depends on a sonic frequency emitted only by a plant indigenous to his world?) We go blithely about "explaining" God as if we have all the information. We don't. Jesus showed us the Father, and for that I thank Him, but I can't assume that by seeing I suddenly understand.

The grace is that somewhere between our inability to grasp the infinite and the stuff we have learned, He loves us. Individually. He said so. "Cast all your cares on Me," He says, as if He somehow knew we would be bothered occasionally. "I so loved this world that I died to save it. Don't worry that you don't understand it all. I can handle your ignorance."

What a relief.