For now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror, but one day we will see face-to-face. 1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (TPT)
Our Father – Prayer and Mystery Series – Part 6
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
“For now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror, but one day we will see face-to-face. My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood. Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love—yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.” 1 Cor 13:12-13 (TPT).
Faith knows that we CAN see. We’ve felt God, seen him move, seen him change lives: healed and made whole. We’ve experienced it ourselves. But for all our study and experience and understanding, it's still just a “faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror… [it is yet] incomplete.”
Trust takes hold of the “until then” bit. It pursues faith, hope, and love. It holds our need to know, and a “non-need” to know in a divine tension, keeping us humble and seeking.
I’ve mentioned Apophatic Prayer a few times through this series. It knows God by focusing on what/who he isn’t, and allows room for what is beyond our understanding. It’s often silent, meditative.
You come to know God as the ground of your own being – the glue – the presence at the heart of all things, and saturating and engulfing love. No words can express this, and so Apophatic Prayer emphasizes loving silence and “unknowing” as distinctive features.
There’s an apophatic prayer that a group called, “The Liturgists” released on an album a couple of years ago. I’ve found it restorative and helpful in my faith journey.
It starts with a statement about who God is:
“God is our father.“
For some, this is comforting and reassuring. But for others, depending on their personal experience with their father, this could be a difficult phrase to say. As you pray it, different images and picture will come to mind of what it looks like for God to be your father.
The next phrase is a negation of the first:
“God is not our father.“
Before you freak out, it’s true. God is NOT our father. He isn’t a male human who fathered us with someone else. He doesn’t tell Dad jokes and work the BBQ. He isn’t JUST a father. He is more than a father. The language of “father” is too limiting for who he is in his entirety.
“God is not our father, for God is more than our father.”
The next phrase sounds uncomfortable at first, but it’s my favorite. It hints at possibility and wonder and hope.
“God is not, not our father.“
Yep, no typo: two “not's.” In the apophatic tradition, this is where the power lies. The idea of God NOT being a father, or being more than a father is still confined to our human understanding and language.
“By saying “God is not, not our Father”, we come to the end of language. We admit that our thoughts can’t define God, and further that they can’t even describe their own limitations. To the mystics, we perhaps are now present with God. Here in the lack of any understanding. Here in the murkiness of mystery, when we have stopped making an idol of God with our concepts and language… we are finally just present with the great “I will be who I will be.”” – Mike McHargue
We are held irrevocably in the mystery of God’s love, without fully understanding it.
Faith and trust.
Take a few moments to sit with this prayer, and maybe add in your own phrases following the same pattern. Or you can find this prayer on Spotify like I did.
Your turn… This one bent our minds a little, but also freed it up plenty. What did it do for you? Leave us your comments below.
Go to Part 7 – When I'm Weak »
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