a post without a title

Wednesday night service in an obnoxiously red chapel, a setting I only recognize from February 14, 2009, when my oldest sister betrothed herself to Jared. Tonight, I sit in a pew instead of standing behind my sister on the altar.

"What has God been teaching you this week?"

It's only Wednesday, but God has been apparent in my life with uncharacteristic ubiquity. I wouldn't know where to begin, so I'm silent.

"He has shown me again that he is in control, the Provider," says one man.
"He is Holy," says another.

Anecdotes are told, and God gets the glory he deserves. Then, a woman's silence breaks along with her spirit and composure.

"I don't love nonbelievers...not at all..." As she melts into tears, a knot forms in my throat. I start thinking about all of the people I love, noting this time the demographic of nonbelievers within this pocket of people I have chosen to love. This woman has decades on me. Her mind is running years into the past, searching and hoping for an indication that she can't be all wrong. Coming up short, she falls apart and succumbs to the inevitable selfish response of guilt. She's lived this long, but she missed the point.

I've missed the point. I will be that woman in a couple of decades despite my greatest efforts. I will crumble into tears at the realization that I don't know how to love my God or His people.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
-Psalm 51:17

There are a lot of points to miss. The infinite facets of God's character cannot be counted or understood by even the most fervent of His followers.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
-Psalm 51:12-14

As important is the call for yielding to all God has planned for us, so is a ready understanding of our humanity and ever-looming failures. Pride may not have infinite facets, but I still haven't been able to count them all. It's ready to catch us in a web of guilt for all shortcomings and failures transpired.

God can't fail. Lessons always become those simple truths we were taught as small children, even when we're fifty-years-old and still guilt-driven.
God loves you.
God is in control.
God has a plan.
Philosophers really do get it sometimes. Kierkegaard said that life can only be understand backwards but it must be lived forwards. Solomon writing Ecclesiastes is a clear enough implication of that truth. If all I can ever truly understand is that I won't ever understand it all in this life, then I can only hope to let my pride take that beating and recognize God's glory and power over my own little life in a big, big world.