postmodern to a t

I've been thinking a lot lately about dreams and aspirations - namely, why would God give me/allow me to have unattainable dreams for what I want to do with my life? And I've been wrestling with that, partly because of trying to figure out if it's something I should try hard to achieve despite difficulty or if it's something to let go of and let God fill the space with something else.

Inadvertently or semi-consciously, though, I've been looking for the answer to this question to determine the nature of God - is He cruel and vindictive, and am I doomed to crushed dreams for the rest of my life? Clearly we know the answer is "no". But postmodern me can say "no" in my head and "but what I see is..." in my heart.

You see, I'm ridiculously postmodern, particularly about this one area of my life. I formulate my idea of God based on my experiences of Him. I treat my life like an inductive Bible study, reading between the lines and searching for meanings and chiasms and themes and a picture of God that I can apply to my life. This is so faulty, though. The Bible is God-breathed and true; my life as I perceive it is an interpretation. My version of my life and someone else's version of it would be very different. Trying to interpret my life, therefore, is double the interpretation, 2 degrees away from truth. It's not that God can't be met and known from His general revelation in our lives. But we can't base our image of Him on life alone.

Which brings us to the trite but true conclusion that to know God, we've gotta read the Bible. Why? Because it's the truth about who God is, untainted by our own perceptions. And no, it rarely lines up with our perceptions of who He is. I'm very good at reading a passage about God's goodness when I'm hurting and seeking comfort and instead of taking the solace He gives there, I go "yeah, but what about how I feel now?" So postmodern!

But whether I like it or not...how I perceive God doesn't change who He is. God is God. God is who He says in the Bible, whether I fully believe it or not. And there's a disjunction between what I see and who He is that is difficult to overcome. The best comparison in human terms is when you're away from someone for a long time and they change, be it a little or drastically, for better or for worse, and when you finally see them again you either can't see the new, better person they are or you miss who they were before they changed to be someone you don't like.

So I guess where that puts me is...really, what I'm feeling about what God's doing (or permitting, or not doing, or whatever the case may be) in my life doesn't change who He is. And despite the sharp contrast I've got to keep digging into the true Text and finding God there to check my self-generated image of Him.

You sweep away what we treasure

Our salute to you tumbles out:
Lord, sovereign, governor, king
political images of us before, gender specific,
marked by macho.
Sometimes we speak the terms glibly, out of habit.
Sometimes we speak them with gravity, counting on you.
But sometimes we are brough up short to see,
yet again,
that you are not kidding: you are other than us.
you will not be mocked.
Lord, sovereign, governor, king:
In your will you sweep away what we treasure,
We watch...and you sweep away a range of our idolatries,
apartheid...but not yet racism,
military regimes...but not yet our superopwer,
heresies....but not yet our self-indulgence.
You, you who sweep away and purge,
Sweep yet the systems of disobedience all around us,
sweep yet the networks of self-securing we treasure,
sweep yet our own childhoods that trap us,
sweep yet our little loves that disable us,
sweep yet our little fears that rob us of you,
sweep yet and make new.
Do your Friday sweep yet again, and
suit us for your Sunday governance. Amen.

-Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth