Journaling/Blogging/Praying through a Playlist 2: Marveling in Mystery and Rejoicing in Not Knowing

"Who You Are" by Nichole Nordeman
I was certain that I knew You
At the tender age of twelve
You'd so often been described by those
Who said they knew You well
Dark and rugged in Your thirties
With a smile as bright as Your robe
Every teacher, every preacher
With the very best intent
Found new ways to hide the mystery
Replaced by common sense
And to know You was to keep You in my pocket
So easy to hold
I know I can't explain You
I would not even try to
And yet it's clear that You are here beside me
I marvel and I wonder
So near and somehow still so far
What makes You who You are?
It is easy to insist
On what is packaged and precise
And dismiss the clear suspicion
That You're bigger than we'd like
It is tempting to regard You as familiar
In so many ways
I've tried to draw these lines around You
A definition or an absolute
But I could not be satisfied with black or white
There is so much more
There is so much You
It's a mystery
It's a mystery
It's a mystery to me

"To Know You" by Nichole Nordeman

It's well past midnight

And I'm awake with questions that won't
Wait for daylight
Separating fact from my imaginary fiction
On this shelf of my conviction
I need to find a place
Where You and I come face to face

Thomas needed
Proof that You had really risen
Undefeated
When he placed his fingers
Where the nails once broke Your skin
Did his faith finally begin?
I've lied if I've denied
The common ground I've shared with him

And I, I really want to know You
I want to make each day
A different way that I can show You how
I really want to love You
Be patient with my doubt
I'm just tryin' to figure out Your will
And I really want to know You still

Nicodemus
Could not understand how You could
Truly free us
He struggled with the image
Of a grown man born again 
We might have been good friends 
'Cause sometimes I still question, too 
How easily we come to You

But I, I really want to know You 
I want to make each day
A different way that I can show You how
I really want to love You
Be patient with my doubt
I'm just tryin' to figure out Your will
And I really want to know You still

No more campin' on the porch of indecision
No more sleepin' under stars of apathy
And it might be easier to dream
But dreamin's not for me

I wish everyone would read Frank Viola's Revise Us Again, promoted in the video below.

The last chapter "Your Christ Is Too Small" is one of the most amazing things I've read in years. Here's one favorite part at the very end, and you can revisit my post from January Wanted: People Who Don't Think Like Me to see more: 

I will end this chapter with a question: How well can you know the Lord? You can know Him in proportion to the poverty that's within your heart. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt 5:3). The opposite of that statement is what the Laodicean church said of herself: "I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing" (Rev. 3:17 NKJV).
A sure mark of spiritual poverty is a wide heart. If you have a narrow heart, you will recognize Christ only through some of His people. And you will be blinded to find Him through others. Jesus Christ is a lot larger than what most us have thought, and He works through a lot more people than we would expect. In C.S. Lewis's Prince Caspian, Aslan tells Lucy, "Every year you grow, you will find Me bigger." This is a wonderful description of authentic spiritual growth. We know we are growing in the Lord when Jesus Christ is becoming bigger in our eyes. Is your Christ too small? May we rescript our lives in a way that opens our hearts to the fullness of Jesus. Please, Lord, revise us again.

As Nichole Nordeman sings, I cannot be satisfied with black and white, with a packaged and precise Jesus in a box, all mystery explained away for our version of comfortable common sense. I want the REAL Jesus, the true Truth, Way, and Life.  I feel a lot like Thomas and Nicodemus even trying to go down the path that leads to Him, but I know He is big enough to hold all my doubt and questions, and He keeps getting bigger!