What do I know of Holy?

Sometimes I feel like my blogging, at least lately, may come across as a downer. "Life sucks, but buck it up because God is good." Well, there is a sense in which that sentiment is quite true. God has spent a good bit of time working out of me the prosperity gospel that I didn't know I believed. God has done that by revealing to me His beauty, goodness, and transcendence even in the very moment of my pain, questioning, and wrestling with Him. I would hate for anyone to get the perspective that my answer is simply to buck it up because God is good. Because what God is teaching me is so much deeper than that. It isn't "buck it up." But it certainly is that God really, truly is so much bigger and more beautiful and more awe inspiring than my ongoing, persistent, nagging, doubt-inspiring troubles.

Maybe I've been living in a cave and everyone else in the world has heard "What Do I Know of Holy?" by Addison Road. But I just heard it for the first time this weekend driving home after a deep conversation with a hurting friend. I almost had to pull my car to the side of the road and stop for a while. The artists summed up my thoughts quite well. I try to be in relationship with You, God. I say I want to hear Your voice, but I end up doing all the talking. Then at some point, You get my attention and expose to me how very little I understand of You. But that's not bad!! Once I get past my discomfort of realizing that You are far bigger and deeper than I can imagine and that I've only begun to plumb the shallowest parts of Your deep well of beauty and goodness, only then can I begin to swim in Your vast ocean of ... Holiness. You are holy, other, set apart, unique, and different from all. You don't do things like the rest of us would if we were god. Yet you've created me in Your image and called me back (through this long, often painful road of sanctification) to be like You and to fellowship with You. And the deeper I get in this journey, the more I realize how vast the ocean of Your character, and I have only just begun to swim Your shores.

Nicole Nordeman sang of this a few years ago in her song, Holy. "Somehow all that matters now is that You are holy." That song played over and over on the radio during the season when my young husband was having his heart surgery. It became my anchor. I had no perspective to give myself for what we were going through. It was unexpected. It knocked me off my foundation and left me treading water grasping for something on which to hold myself steady. God's word to me was that all that mattered in that moment was that He is Holy. And that is enough. That wasn't a trite or simplistic answer from God. That really was the only thing in that situation that could anchor me.

What do I know of Holy? Only the very tip of the iceberg. But the most important thing I know of Holy is that it is worth knowing, whatever path knowing it takes.