God in Dangerous Places
Dad warned me about a smooth granite outcropping near our house. It curved gently downward, a drop of ten feet to meet the rippling surface of the lake. “Stay away from here. It’s slippery and too dangerous.” his stern deep voice was authoritative, clear. But my four-year-old curiosity mistook the warning for an invitation.
I remember a quiet summer afternoon, feeling an irresistible pull. Walking a few hundred yards, I sat down at the top of the outcropping, and watched the water dance.
You may think I tripped, fell in, and desperately tried to survive, saved only by my heroic effort and stamina. But that’s not what happened, not only because I lack heroics, but also because as I sat there, I felt the presence of God. Yes, I was out of bounds, but God met me in the dangerous place.
I cannot say exactly what happened there that day, but I stood up and left knowing that God loved me. As one who would face hard realities and attempt to hold onto faith despite them, that message would be needed one day soon.
Why do we dream? Nobody likes a dreamer with sitting alone with his thoughts, feeling God’s presence, shunning daily realities the everyone else accepts. After all, reality is pressing on us all, and even dreamers have responsibilities we cannot shirk. To imagine a better world in the face of stark reality seems absurd, and a childish escape from accountability.
Yet most of us must dream. Some souls may be so well-adapted to concrete reality that they find dreaming a nuisance. But I am not one of those.
I feel unexplained longings, see the profound distance between what is and what should be, and cannot numb the senses that tell me both that something is wrong with this world and also that something better lies beyond it. Living between this world and the next, there are, perhaps, two ways dreaming can take shape.
Seeing the failings of the world, and myself, I built software, created frameworks to help businesses, and formulated philosophical arguments. I wanted to bring about the future state of affairs hinted at in the beauty and presence I glimpsed that day by the lake, but this has never felt authentic. It was too safe, and I did not feel the presence of God guarding me, celebrating me in the moment.
But now I’m taking another path which some may deride as escapism. I want to share the moments when God shows up in the mess of everyday living. Storytelling depicts an alternate vision unattainable in the natural order, and it does so with profound clarity and emotive force. It is the bridge between now and not yet, and it opens us to a world we could not discover any other way.
My first serious attempt at creativity was learning to play guitar and write my own songs. Though that hobby has not followed me into adulthood, it sums up most enduring force in my life: the longing ache I felt as a teenager listening to U2 sing, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. I want to see what really is, as it is—to find the meaning in it for myself and for others.
Put another way, I feel drawn irresistibly to prove in concrete ways that nothing in a human life is ever wasted. Imperfection, pain, sin and suffering weave a tapestry that we can glimpse dimly, and its beauty is profound. We see it in moments of grace and redemption: how God shows up in our inner world when we relinquish control. His presence sustains us while we suffer though we profoundly wish to escape the suffering that shows us His presence. We see that the cosmos and the physical world point to a world of meaning and existence beyond comprehension.
Water is a magnet, and I’m metal. While strolling along a river or beach, I still feel unexplained longings, and I feel God reminding me that he welcomes my dreaming (even when it’s unrealistic) and that will always meet me in dangerous places.
