Sometimes I like to play this old Puritan-based game of calling God all of His wonders to His face. And I truly believe He is glorified by these creative, child-like, awe-filled adjectival addresses.
One of my favorites came walking around campus at UNC several years ago, realizing the vastness of this so-called "people" God created. And that a day in His courts, with His perspective, with the fullness of His love for all of His people, would be better than any day elsewhere. To see as He sees, to walk as He walked when manifested as Jesus here on this earth... the thoughts stopped me in my tracks. In that moment, He promptly became "God with the Desirable FannyPack", one in which I am hemmed into, held and gladly ride in every day, thanks to Holy Spirit, Counselor God.
So, here we are, God of Total Completion. Tonight, watching the bats squawk their way between trees, I am reminded of my frame (don't ask my why bats had anything to do with this). And yet in this frame, this measly (I mean curvy) frame, I am a recipient of our Creator God's Love. Not just any kind of imbued or imparted love, but a specifically-articulated Love, delivered in such a predestined, predetermined way. In fact, one that I am convinced demands we thank our God for how He loves us.
When you think of completion in our epistle context (often out of context, might I add), we think, "Aah yes, the God that's going to end my suffering and bring this awful trial to eventual completion. I just know He will. Yes, of course, He's gonna." Well, sure. But isn't there more? Yes, the answer is always "Yes!" with our God.
This notion of completion is expanded when we view God as bringing into full completeness all the fragments of Himself that we represent. In reference to His Love, you see He loves us passionately - perhaps like a boyfriend who broke your heart in high school but represented all things passionate and red hot (gag!), so to speak. Yet He loves us tenderly - perhaps like a father who scoops us up and cares for our wounds and holds our head when we're crying. But then again, He loves us fiercely - like a husband who can vigorously approach and win you over with his desire in a moment of intense and overwhelming intimacy. Contrasting and yet complimenting, He loves us constantly - like a sister who never goes away or abandons even after years of ups and downs, distance and nearness, separation and closeness. In all of these ways and millions more, He loves us.
And so our God, our great and loving, covenant-keeping God, with the most desirable FannyPack in which we wish to be forever tucked away and zipped in, with the most incredible humanly-demonstrative form of forgiveness on the cross, with the most perfectly-executed buy-back plan for our souls... this God is the completeness of all the pieces and parts He created us to be of His image. In other words, He made us to be teeny, tiny wedges in His identity pie chart by creating each of us as a unique piece of Himself - that He and He alone completes. Therefore, He is the completion of all the good things that we are.
Taking it a step farther, anything good that we ever are or ever do or ever say is due to His humorous grace allowing it. Without Him, we are nothing good. In the words of a dear pastor, reminded to me recently by an even-dearer friend, "We deserve nothing but hell." Apart from our God, who sent our Savior from Himself, we are nothing. But, I digress.
When I see God as this type of completion - not only a God that "brings" completion but "is" completion - and in this way is the end to my be all, it fosters in me a sense of gratefulness. I am grateful that He invited me into His identity equation and dubbed me as His image bearer. It also encourages the realest sense of obedience for me, that I may bear Him well. That the piece of Him that I am may be rendered and represented correctly - as if I am speaking the very words of God, says Peter. Ultimately, I think, this encourages a reciprocal love. That our God, our "Lover to the Uttermost," the One who loves us unchangeably and everlastingly, would invoke in us a reciprocal passionate, tender, fierce and constant love for Him.
"Deepen in me a sense of my holy relationship to thee,
as spiritual Bridegroom,
as Jehovah's Fellow,
as sinners' Friend." *
as spiritual Bridegroom,
as Jehovah's Fellow,
as sinners' Friend." *
So here we are, fractions of a Fully Complete God. And though our view is eclipsed, we, through ourselves and others, experience and encounter God Himself.
Oh, God of dual-meanings and nuances, you are indeed incarnate. Not only once, but forevermore through Your people. You leave traces of Yourself in us, thread together by Your Spirit. Thank you for doing that. You love us so incredibly well.
*Reference: "Christ is All" from the Valley of Vision
