God is...

In my desperate (and sometimes genuine) search for God, I usually end up creating maps that leads to God. What makes me believe there actually is a God, incidentally, is that I eventually realize that my map has become my God. Unfortunately, this never happens before I’ve spent lots of energy defending my map and fighting for it, all the while pointing out how faulty and inaccurate another’s map might be.

Jesus wasn’t as bold when trying to describe God. With a smile, and maybe a frustrated sense of the inadequate nature of words, he would launch into a story that began with words like this: “The Kingdom of God is like…”

So what is God?

God is my three boys who drop whatever they’re doing the moment they hear the garage door opening, which is the clarion call that announces their daddy is home. They rush at me, arms outstretched, screaming my name, enveloping me with little boy smiles and hugs and squeals.

God is the wave that knocked me down as a child, utterly overpowering me and upending me to the sandy ocean floor, sputtering and choking and completely undone.

God is the foggy morning where I can’t see five feet in front of me.

God is the drip-drip-drip of a spring morning.

God is the familiar lump in my throat that accompanies a particularly well-written scene in my favorite novel.

God is the first delicious morsel of real food after having the flu for a week.

God is the dark before the dawn.

God is the dawn.

God is.