The Awesomeness of God (Yawn)

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Our daughter, Maureen, who lives in Colorado and is a great admirer of the Rocky Mountains, recently reminded me of the trips from Iowa to Colorado our family took when she and her brother, Sean, were children.

We went there frequently to visit my sister, Carolyn, whom our kids consider a second mother and whom they were always eager to see.

Traveling west on a clear day, you can see the Rockies from almost 50 miles out. Being a flatlander, the sight always moved me, and I would say to the kids, “Look, you can see the mountains!”

“Yeah,” they would say. “How long before we get to Carolyn’s?”

It occurs to me that their reaction is somewhat like that of many of us, believers and non-believers, to God. Believers are so used to the idea of God, his/her awesomeness easily escapes us. Non-believers don’t see anything to be awe-struck about. Yawns all around.

An Obstacle to the Search
But failure by people searching for God – believers or not - to recognize God’s awesomeness is an obstacle in the search, in my view. We should be able to relate to the author of Psalm 8 who wrote,

“O Lord, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!
…When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
The moon and stars that you set in place –
What is man that you are mindful of him?
And the son of man that you care for him?”

Some may counter that this might have been the appropriate response in pre-scientific times, but not for modern people who believe in evolution and the scientific method. Wikipedia defines the scientific method, by the way, as “a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.”

Modern people would have a point if the scientific method were the only way of acquiring or testing knowledge. Obviously, religious truths are not measurable and not subject to science’s principles of reasoning. That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist or are unreasonable. “The heart has reasons which reason cannot know,” said Blaise Pascal, the 17th century mathematician, physicist and theologian. But that’s another blog.

Blaise Pascal
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For some, awareness of God’s awesomeness comes like a bolt of lightning, a sudden awakening. For others, it dawns on them over a long period. Some may have to wait a lifetime. The important thing is continuing the search for such awareness.

I place myself in the second category, by the way, among those in whom the awesomeness of God has revealed itself over a long period – much like Maureen’s delay in her appreciation of the awesomeness of the Rocky Mountains.

But without a sense of God’s awesomeness, most religions – including Judaism and Christianity – make little sense. That includes much of what we know about prayer.

A lifelong Catholic, I’ve never quite understood or appreciated the songs and prayers of praise that are typical of evangelical Christians. I rightly believed that God doesn’t need our praise, but failed to understand that once you get a sense of God’s awesomeness, you can’t help yourself. Praise is the only appropriate response, and I have a new appreciation for the “Holy, holy, holy” of the Catholic mass.

One problem may be that “praise” has become one of those “churchy” words that is not part of our daily vocabulary. We rarely talk about “praising an employee’s work” or “praising a great baseball play.”

How Awesome our Beliefs
Besides our failure to be in awe of God, we believers often fail to appreciate how awesome – and in the eyes of non-believers how absurd – are our beliefs. Jesus changed water into wine, walked on water and, get this, rose from the dead? 

When we evaluate our faith lives with our “scientific” minds we allow our doubts to cloud our view of God and religion. We can be skeptics and allow for doubt while recognizing that the source of our faith knowledge isn’t dependent on the scientific method.

Then we can come to recognize God’s awesomeness and pray with the author of Psalm 66:

Acclaim God, all the earth,
Sing psalms to the glory of his name,
Glorify him with your praises,
Say to God, 'How awesome you are!

 

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