Imagine a living, loving, infinite, all knowing and powerful God, who has no beginning or end because he has always been and always “is”.
Muse on that thought for a moment ….
It’s a significant challenge for the finite to imagine the INFINITE, isn’t it?
God communicates to His created human race that he is an extraordinary God and that His plans are “exceedingly and abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3). That’s an audacious statement …. especially because many of us have very ambitious imaginations!!! However, God proclaims that we cannot even begin to ask or imagine how exceedingly and abundantly He is able to work in and through our lives.
If you were God, what method would you employ to convey your love to people? How would you go about imparting the infinite to finite human beings?
Perhaps God might demonstrate His love toward us using sympathy ….
Sympathy — connection to another’s feelings to parallel experiences
Or, perhaps He could demonstrate His love toward us using empathy ….
Empathy — a choice to enter the perspective of another
Or, what if God used a form of interpathy….? Interpathy….? What is interpathy, you ask?
Interpathy is an intentional cognitive envisioning and affective of experience of another’s thoughts and feelings, even though the thoughts rise from another process of knowing, the values grow from another frame of moral reasoning, and the feelings spring from another basis of assumptions.
David Augsberger (1986) Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures
I think the word interpathy is both intriguing and fascinating ….
God’s ways are certainly not our ways.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
Isaiah 55:8
God uses a form of “interpathy” to demonstrate the passion and love He has for the created order.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
God became human through the person of Jesus to identify with every human emotion, intellectual thought and physical reality of that which we experience on this earth. If we want to see and know God we do it through the astonishing Person of Jesus.
God chose his Son’s virgin birth, a brutal, ruthless death and a promising resurrection to demonstrate His infinite love toward the finite.
God also uses other methods to communicate his love toward us …. today, in real time. Here are just a few ….
- The Living, Holy, inspired Word of God
- His indwelling Holy Spirit
- Godly people who speak into our lives
- Circumstances that direct our lives
For all things work together for good, for those who love God, for those who are called to His eternal purposes
Romans 8:28
Even on Irene’s Journey of Faith, where we know not what the future holds, we hold on to Him, for He held on to us …. first. Jesus demonstrates His love for us by dying on the cross but he didn’t remain there …. he lives in Heaven and He lives in each heart that possesses Him.
Caminando con Fé
Dave
