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| From Russia. With Fun! O rly? |
Tetris is probably one of the most recognized video games of all time. It is played by controlling and coordinating colored blocks on screen which are falling inexplicably downward. Once the blocks reach the bottom of the screen, they must form rows to be eliminated, otherwise they will build up, fill the screen and cause a game over.
As the player proceeds through various levels, the blocks fall faster and faster, creating greater cause for error and greater cause for rage quitting. The player must be able to think quickly in order to keep forming rows out of the blocks. L-blocks, T-blocks and squigglies, and the rare and coveted line-piece, must be organized, and organized quickly. Really, the whole point of the game is organization.
I mentioned that Tetris plays upon a fundamental human fear, which is this: the fear of disorganization.
Think about it. All of our lives have been about putting things in order. Bank accounts order your money. Bills organize what you owe. Cellphones organize our phone numbers. Facebook organizes your social life. Folders organize your pictures, music, documents and videos. Vacations organize your time off. Clocks and calendars organize how you will spend your time. Friends (or lack of friends) organize what you do with your time. In your home, you have various rooms with certain designations, which are organized in that way. Check out the fridge lately? There is a lot of organization going on there. Even a messy person organizes their mess.
On a larger scope, the government and our cities organize all kinds of things. Corporations are organized. Roads are organized. Laws are organized. Prisons are organized. Residential areas are organized. Hospitals are organized. Restaurants are organized. Schools are organized. Everything is organized in science, biology, physics, astronomy. Learning is all about categorizing things you've learned into their respective groups.
All of our lives are full of organization. We treasure it. We need it.
Things which through our lives into disorder are things which we avoid. Unexpected accidents and bills. Natural disasters. Power outages. Running out of gas on the way to work. But there are ways to even get around things like these. You've maybe got a savings account for emergencies, a spare tire in your trunk, an emergency contact, a flashlight and batteries in the closet for those power outages.
Yet for all of our plans, there is really one thing that does not quite fit into our well-organized lives. That is: God.
Oh sure, many of us make time for God-stuff on Sundays and such. Church can fit into our organized lives. But I'm not talking about church. I'm talking about God Almighty. And there is no way to fit His infinitude into our organized lives.
Certainly many religions and religious groups exist for the sole purpose of trying to fit their concepts of 'god' into our lives. But what you end up with is a compact, silly idea of God either being uninterested in human affairs, or as being to impotent to be of assistance, or of just plain being your bestest bud in the universe. The REAL God simply doesn't categorize like that and there's no way of rationalizing Him into our address books, calendars or sciences. That's why no amount of religious jargon can ever fully explain what it must be like to be three Persons in one God or just why God began all of history or really why He loves us little things at all.
God does as He wills, as He sees fit according to His wisdom and counsel. There's nothing you or I can do about it. We can only rest upon the truths that God is good and that God does things for a reason. God's nature is something infinitely beyond our grasp. God's actions are enacted with purposes we couldn't dream of. God's essence is unlike anything we know. God's goodness is a goodness which we can hardly comprehend. God's justice and holiness are concepts we're hardly fully aware of. And we could go on talking like this for ours, talking about an everlasting Life, an infinite Mind, an all-encompassing Love in an Almighty God... talking about all this without even batting an eye.
I'm steadily learning this since I began teaching our college-age Bible study in systematic theology. The sheer inability of human words to not only attempt to describe God but to actually explain Him reminds me of the apostle's own words, when he tells of a man who was caught up to heaven and saw things that could not be explained.
Tetris blocks may be easy to fit together, but the Lord of Heaven is not so easily fit-able. If it seems to you that He is, if it seems as if God easily fits together in your mind, that you're somehow comfortable His Being which is so much higher, holier, greater, alien, infinite and lovelier than ours, then you need to look at Him as He really is.
When the original biblical peoples saw God, they were terrified, humbled, aghast at their own inabilities and ineptitude. When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from the presence of God. When Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the LORD, he was left bested, beaten and begging. When Israel stood before the burning mountain of fire, they cried out in terror. When the apostles saw the transfigured Christ, they were struck with awe. When John saw the vision of the risen Christ in the Apocalypse, he fell as one dead. Why? Because God was too much. He didn't fit. There was nothing like Him they had ever dreamed of. He is something that was beyond them, beyond their organized lives and their organized thoughts and their organized religiousity.
Where has all this gone off to? Where is our understanding of what God is like? Why is it that we're so comfortable with a 'little' god we've made to fit into our organized lives?
"What a friend we have in Jesus", but what an awe-inspiring Being He is at the same time. Don't lose your balance.
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