Theology, Grace, and Things Too Wonderful to Understand

I have considered and read a lot on the various sides of the Calvinism/Open Theism debate, but I have not arrived at any systematic theological conclusion.

Last Saturday, somewhere in the second volume of Jesus Freaks, a kind of modern-day Foxe's Book of Martyr's, I read something like this (paraphrased as I remember it): "God is Truth. The Bible is the truth about Truth. And Theology is the truth about the truth about Truth. Most Christians spend their time entirely in the last two. But it is us (speaking of persecuted Christians), who have known, in those prison cells and moments of torture and despair, without a Bible or a sermon or anything tangible to comfort us--- it us who have known such ecstasy and peace and joy through the presence of Christ--- that we would not trade it for anything."

Knowledge can puff up, whereas only the Spirit of God can awaken our hearts to Truth. This does not devalue the pursuit of the knowledge of God, which is necessary, but how much we would miss if in our pursuit of the knowledge of God, we forgot to pursue God Himself. The Bible and Theology help, but a miracle of God is absolutely necessary if we are to experience Ephesians 1:15-23.

So, in my sometimes waning pursuing of God Himself, and His relentless pursuit of me, I am seeing the character of a God who is completely loving, completely just, completely knowing of everything past and present and future, and yet still somehow, someway, allows the weak mutterings we call prayers, to reach the throne room of God. Just as the prophet declared to Hezekiah that he was going to die, but Hezekiah humbled himself and wept bitterly before God and repented, and God relented and gave him 15 more years to live---that same God actually listens and acts according to our prayers. It is one of the most amazing and mysterious things, and it is all because of Jesus' blood. Now we can come boldly before the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Someone said to me recently, all of our prayers are weak. We get discouraged to even pray, because our words seem so inadequate and empty to express what is on our hearts, or what we want to feel but don't always feel. But God chose the foolish and weak things to shame the wise and the strong. He chose something as simple as opening your mouth and asking an invisible God to act, even when we don't know what to say and we feel like He is not listening. . . . He chose that to move mountains. He chose that to heal wounds. He chose our weak expressions of dependence on Him to set the captives free.

Here is a song about the Gospel I listened to over and over again at work on Monday. It brought me to tears again to think of how Jesus chose the cross for us. His humility,majesty, love, and grace astound me: