Word

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. John 1:1

“Words fail me.” Have you ever thought or uttered this phrase?

It’s easy to understand since words are merely vehicles used to describe, at the lowest denominator, something we behold; there are any of a number of things which we have no ability to convey their meaning, let alone their significance, in our lives.

No one has the ability to fully describe God. It is impossible to think that we can use any of the present patterns of random symbols to accurately convey to everyone just who God is and what He is in relationship to the entirety of creation. Words fail us.

Consider the writer of 1 John who faced with this difficult task could only ink out the claim. “God is love.” Did words fail him or did he simple select the word which was the lowest common denominator which his readers would be able to comprehend?

All language misses the mark of accurately conveying the essence of thing or event. In New Testament biblical terminology, when something misses the mark, it is called sin. This is not bad or good, it is merely a point of demarcation in a journey.

A relationship with a spiritual being is a journey which cannot be described with the symbols of a material realm. Words fail every time when we are forced to convey the experience which is unfolding in our interior world.

Since we live and function is a material world, we often feel compelled to define our inner experiences with the mystical realm in the form which only the material can relate to. This rarely works simply because words designed to capture the material realm cannot express the expansion of the mystical realm. Another means to explain this would be to recognize that to know a thing is not the same as to be that thing.

Consider this for a moment. Jesus said that he and the Father are one. Jesus even prayed that we would be as one as he and the Father are one. In both of these claims there is a premise where words fail us to imagine not the ability to be known but to be one. You can espouse the reality of God in your confession, but can you be the reality of God in your habitation?

I’m not the first to claim how we have been unable to house the Word of God. Words fail us before an omni-God. Our understanding of a being who is all present, all powerful, and all knowing is at the lowest possible level of communication. We grasp and stumble for the speech to capture what these terms truly mean and their influence upon us.

The priests of Israel often sing from Psalms 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork.” Watching the sun set in the woods is an inspiring event leaving many with a lack of words to describe it. Yet, through the sights, sounds and smells surrounding us our feelings and emotions are sprinting to capture the fullness of this mystical rendezvous which the mind is unable to articulate.

We just refuse to accept that what we are unable to convey is the Word. God. Love. We can’t add to it by declaring something more and making it ours. It has never been ours – it has always been His. He in us and we in Him – One. Word. God. Love.

It might be possible how when words fail us, we should pause in that very moment and recognize we are in a mystical moment where the glory and handiwork of God is speaking louder than we want to hear.  Word.