A Cardboard-less Life

A favorite pastime of mine is defining words. Yeah I admit that is pretty nerdy, but I really don't care. I'd prefer to be nerdy than not be myself. (Anyway! That was totally digressing from the topic . . .  now where was I?) Oh yes: Defining words is a kind of hobby for me. Words quickly--and easily--lose their meanings when they are tossed around like a wilting salad. For example, the word love is thrown at everything from pizza to our best friends (or spouse) it almost loses its complete meaning. Another word that we have nearly lost the meaning of is God. People say things like "oh my g-d!" (I did not capitalize or completely write God in that example for a reason: it is using God's name in vain) Or some have said "I am g-d." It just drives me up the wall when people use the Creator's name for their own end--and lies. (And a pet peeve of mine is when people don't capitalize the word God) But--and I say but--something that is just as bad as using God's name in vain is giving a concrete meaning to the word God. "Now wait," you might say, "God can't be abstract!!!!!" And the truth is that God is NOT an abstract concept. Yet God is not a person that you can really define. Let me use an example: say you have a friend named Edward. Now if I asked you to define Edward how would you define him? You might say that he is funny, or fair, or a jerk. But I would not really know the definition of Edward unless I met him and got to know him, would I? My friend Joe once said that trying to describe a person is "like trying to sing a song to someone: you know exactly what it sounds like in your head, but the person hearing it for the first time from your mouth will not know what it really sounds like at all." You cannot describe a song. You cannot explain a person. You cannot define God. God is just too big, too mighty, too awesome. God created all that you see, touch, feel, smell, taste, know, think, and hope for. He is outside of time. He created it all for crying out loud! When we try to put God in a box we are taking the real God and replacing Him with a God that can fit into something that we can touch. We take the One who can do anything--within and beyond our imagination--and make Him small enough to fit into pieces of cardboard. God canNOT be defined. He just doesn't fit into the box that we call words. He is. He was. He alway will be. God. When you think you have God figured out--He changes. The only way God and boxes relate is that God will always be outside any box. And any box you find is just a boundary you created for yourself. So do me a favor and stomp the next box (or impossibility) you find into pieces of wet cardboard. Because when you have God, boxes are just places to put your stuff you don't ever use. If we lived like God was greater than this world, we would never steep into another box ever again.

~TDH