Monday, February 5, 2024
What’s a miracle if not a surprise, even to the so-called bold? Is a courageous person not delighted in their bold moves and even surprised when they see results? I wonder if Jesus was surprised. “Holy crap, I’m walking on water!” “Wow, I just fed thousands of people with merely two loaves and three fishes – what the hell????” Did God walk up to void and say, “I’m not sure about this, but Let there be light!” Do you think he was surprised when it actually worked? The source of your joy is not knowing.
Expectation and faith come with the pretense of doubt. Pre-tense, tense, and past tense. As you get closer to impossibility you get tense, it erupts in a surprise when it happens, and it becomes past tense, and you return to the pretense of a new goal. Getting a dream comes with a built-in (pre)tension – a surprise mechanism waiting “under cover.” Why not rejoice pretentiously when you get the idea in the first place? Getting the dream is just like God walking up to the void and declaring “Let there be Light” with no pretense that light was nonexistent in the first place! Fundamentally, that statement means “Let the darkness be removed!”
I love the pretense of doubt, for without it, I can’t be delighted. I can march right up to the void and declare my desire as truth. When it comes into my heart it is. But first, I have to pretend that it’s not, in the physical realm. Possibility pretends to be impossibility; it is not the other way around. Impossibility is the imposter. There is no place God is not, except arguably in pretense, and even so, he’s hiding within it. But I’m not going to spoil the surprise. Who doesn’t like miracles?
(And happy birthday to me. I’m writing this on Oct. 5, 2023; so when I read it today, I’ll have pretended that I had forgotten, and I’ll be surprised on my birthday. What a miracle! )