Frozen Chunkies

As my wife pulled out her chair to sit down at her computer tonight, her eyes swept over my side of the desk and landed with some surprise on my glass of water. Now a glass of water isn't so surprising, I do partake of the substance on occasion. But this time, there was ice in the glass! Shocking, I know.

What you may not know about me though is that I never want ice in my glass. With most drinks, the ice just melts and makes my drink watery. Between the two evils of watery beverage and lukewarm beverage, I prefer the second. There's also the matter of the ice just being in the way. I just want to pour the drink into my mouth, not sift it through my lips and teeth to keep the chunkies in the glass. I know. Its un-American. But that's they way I like it. And you earn big points if you deliver my drink to me ice-less.

So you can see why she was surprised. Here I am, getting ready to blog and drinking a glass of literally ice cold water--complete with ice. You could see the confusion on her face like she was a third grader in calculus class. She thought she knew something about me. And then, it turns out she didn't.

Lately I've been having this same kind of response to God. He is very difficult to box up, you know. I once tried to use a trash bag to collect a bunch of packing peanuts--except the bag was too small and even though it seemed like I should have been able to get it closed over the top, peanuts were flying everywhere. God is way worse than that.

A friend of mine recently stopped trying to decide what to call herself theologically. I think that's a good idea. Because even if I agree with, say, Martin Luther, the moment I call myself a Lutheran I suggest that Martin had it all figured out. That Martin's view of God was the right one and by knowing Luther, I'll know God.

Except that knowing Luther isn't the same as knowing God. And Martin didn't even have it all figured out. He was quite happy teaching totally opposite truths about God because he'd read them both in the Bible. It didn't matter to him that they didn't make sense. Drove his followers crazy.

I kind of like the idea of driving people crazy. Keeps them on their toes. I think God does too. It means that we're constantly going back to Him instead of our assumptions about him and figuring out all over again who he is. And what he'd like in his soda.