Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter
by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“As the deer longs for streams of water,
so my soul longs for you, O God”.

(PSALM 42:2)

Anyone who claims to understand God is deceived, because we know that God is ineffable. That means that we can know God, but never adequately capture God in a concept. God is unimaginable. If God could be understood, then God would be as limited as we are.

God may be ineffable, but God’s nature is known. Divine revelation, as seen through nature, as seen through other religions, and especially as seen through Jesus, spells our what’s inside God’s inexpressible reality. 

What’s revealed there is both comforting beyond all comfort and challenging beyond all challenge. What’s revealed in the beauty of creation, in the compassion that’s the hallmark of all true religion – and in Jesus’ revelation of his Father – takes us beyond a blind date into a trustworthy relationship. Nature, religion, and Jesus conspire together to reveal an Ultimate Reality, a Ground of Being, a Creator and Sustainer of the universe, a God who is wise, intelligent, prodigal, compassionate, loving, forgiving, patient, good, trustworthy, and beautiful beyond imagination.
 

God cannot be deciphered, circumscribed, or captured in human thought; but, from what can be deciphered, we’re in good, safe hands. We can sleep well at night. God has our back. In the end, both for humanity as a whole and for our own individual lives. As Julian of Norwich prayed: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ God is good” (24).