At Your Word, I will obey

There are times when I hesitate to write or talk about the things that most inspire me because I feel as though my words simply cannot do justice to its profundity and beauty. Reading Eugene Peterson's book "Subversive Spirituality" has had such an effect on me. Try as I have, I have found it almost impossible to summarise his main ideas, or say what the book is about. Still, I shall try.

 To put it simply, Peterson is in love with the Word, in whom the fullness of God is revealed to us. He is also in love with words, by which we can commune with one another, and with the Word. This is how he describes the mystery of words and as I read it late one night recently, a hushed silence fell upon me, ushering me into holy ground.

“Anyone of us, waking up in the morning and finding ourselves included in that part of the creation called human, sooner or later finds ourselves dealing with language, with words. We are the only creatures in this incredible, vast creation doing this. Language is unique to us human beings. Turnips complete a fairly complex and useful life cycle without the use of words. Roses grace the world with an extraordinary beauty and fragrance without uttering a word. Dogs satisfy tens of thousands of us with faithful and delightful companionship without a word. Birds sing a most exquisite music to our ears, lifting our spirits, giving us happiness, all without the capability of words. It is quite impressive really, what goes on around us without words: ocean tides, mountain heights, stormy weather, turning constellations, genetic codes, bird migrations – most, in fact, of what we see and hear around us, a great deal of it incredibly complex, but without language, wordless. We are the only ones in this stunning kaleidoscopic array of geology and biology and astronomy to use words…

When a person becomes a Christian, interest in language doubles because not only do we use words, but we find that God uses words as well. The one who reveals God to us is named Word. This human nature of ours with its mysterious and unique capacity for language is paralleled in the nature of God. God speaks…In the complete revelation of God, the Word became flesh. We who are already flesh become words, speak words, and as we do, we become human.”

Even as I type this, I find myself swept away by the measure of God’s love and the extent of His self-limitation. He graced us with language capacity, and then chose to communicate His infinite divine nature to us through words that our little minds can understand.

Still, despite our shared language capacity, God’s Word is of a fundamentally different nature from ours, and He speaks for purposes that are beyond what our minds can comprehend.

“When God speaks it is not in order to give us information on the economy so that we will know how to do our financial planning. When God speaks it is not as a fortune teller, looking into our personal future and satisfying curiosity regarding our romantic prospects or the best horse to bet on .No, when God speaks it is not in explanation of all the things that we have not been able to find answers to from our parents or in books or from reading tea leaves. God’s Word is not, in essence, information or gossip or explanation. God’s Word makes things happen – He makes something happen in us. The imperative is a primary verb form in Holy Scripture: “Let there be light…Go…Come…Repent…Believe…Be still…Be healed…Get up…Ask…Love…Pray”

And the intended consequence of the imperative is obedience. I love the Psalm phrase, “I will run in the way of thy commandments, when thou givest me understanding” (Ps 119:32). Yes, run.” 

I read this in my room but in my mind’s eye, I was transported to the library. There are times when I sit quietly in the library, gaze at the children and youth who stream in, read the charts that line the wall, scan the shelves of books and touch the wooden furniture, and think to myself, “Look what God has created in this place, this building that was once completely bare and empty and lifeless. Now people walk in, linger, sit around, talk and laugh, strum the guitar, read, learn and grow together.”

Or sometimes, I sit in the garden to escape the heat during a blackout, and as I gaze at the plants, the walkway, I remember how all this was a pile of rubble, and I can still see our four local friends hard at work, mixing cement, laying blocks, digging holes, planting flowers. I still remember the bizarre shopping trip with a student who volunteered to help build the garden, how he had to buy a crowbar, but I didn’t know its Tetum name, and couldn’t decipher the charade that followed. I gave up trying to understand what he needed and just followed him from shop to shop, leaving him to talk to the shop assistants. When the elusive crowbar finally emerged from the warehouse, I was relieved but honestly bewildered as to what it would be used for. (For the record, a crowbar is called "ai-suak" in Tetum, and it is a most useful tool for digging.)

It also didn’t seem that long ago that we first bought the two bougainvillea shrubs from a nearby flower market, which two of our students helped to carry back to the library. I remember walking back with them, noticing how the bigger and stronger boy had cheekily carried the smaller shrub, while the other scrawny boy was left to carry the heavier one. Now, the shrubs have grown so big they overhang the surrounding wall, and the big and tall boy is now a follower of Jesus and a constant blessing to me. 

Once, there was nothing. Now, there are flowers, chairs, shelves, books, big people, small people, laughter, music, community. All of this has come about because at some point, God spoke to us to come and God gave us the grace to obey. The combination unleashed His creative energy and something new was created. Something came into being, and it will keep on growing, it cannot help but keep growing, because His Word has power, is power, and it will keep on creating and birthing a new thing. His Word is dynamite, our obedience is a spark, and the result is an explosion of creative divine energy that is so beautiful, we cannot imagine it, we cannot describe it.  

What an absolute shame it is, what a travesty it is, when we think of obeying God as something dreadful, frightening and painful. What a lie that it. If we could only see the beauty and power that is unleashed when we obey God’s creative Word. Obedience would become exciting, we would fall over ourselves to obey, like someone scrambling for front row seats to watch a dazzling fireworks display so beautiful that once again, you feel your words simply can’t capture its awesome splendor.