embrace the mystery

i'm a math geek. its what i loved in high school and through most of college...until we started talkin 4th dimensions in Modern Algebra...sorry Dr. Constantine. but i loved math because there was a system to it, a system that produced specific results. 2+2=4 always. to find the derivative of x^n all you have to do is make it n*x^(n-1). always, the system always worked. i realized this morning that in some ways i'm still searching for God's system. the system that is going to produce in me the desired result of being nearer to God and more like the Son. i have to pray the right prayers in the right order, and read the right amount of scriptures and desert fathers...

i've had about 3 different prayers or passages of scriptures that i've tried to make my initiative in prayer from Thomas a' Kempis, Philippians, Mother Theresea, this morning i found @twitturgies on Twitter and said, here's my new one...

there's just one problem. God doesn't have a system...God is love, God asks for love and there is definitely, DEFINITELY no system to love...and if there is, Mandy will agree that I haven't figured that system out yet. God is mystery, and mysteries are most definitely not a system...there is a dynamic beauty and fluidity to God that cannot be described by a system of prayers or study...no relationship can. sure there are helps...but the very intent of embracing a system to God inevitably results in a system that will either fail or replace God...there has to come a point where we can embrace the mystery of a God that would seek to be healer in our brokenness by entering into our brokenness; not just fixing it. there is mystery in a God that is one and three and one and three. rather than seeking to solve the mystery, lets wish to become a part of the mystery..how i desire to get lost in that mystery

maybe that's why i hit the wall in Modern Algebra, i couldn't embrace the mystery...