The Name of God

I've been trying to get this post finished for weeks, and I guess it's finally here, finished or otherwise.

It came from a conversation I had with someone whose basic problem with religion was along the lines that if there is a God, he must be so far beyond our understanding that giving him a name (or a gender for that matter) is somehow constraining God.

My issue with that point of view is that, basically, it's true. I have met religious people who believe it's their purpose to understand God (that's for another post), but I'm not sure I'd want to worship any deity that could be fully understood by some chick with a couple of mediocre A-levels, none of which are in theology.

Yes, God is outside our understanding. Of course he is, he's God. But just because he doesn't fit into our human ideas of gender or indeed anything else we may try to use to describe him, does that mean we stop referring to him? That doesn't seem to make any sense. Any conversation about - or with - God, by definition needs a term for God. We need a name for Him, it's as simple as that.

Aside from the practical issues, God wants us to speak to him. I don't know how many times in the Bible he urges people to 'call on my name', but I bet it's a lot. And he gives us plenty of names to use - but that, too, is for another post. I suppose it's something of a quandary: God knows we cannot fully understand Him, but neither does He want us to constrain Him in any way. He doesn't expect us to understand Him (except in as much as He reveals of Himself in the Bible or personal experiences) but He longs for us to know him.

And I think that's what I came away from that conversation with. Maybe there is no name that can really encompass who or what God really is, but there is a name that he invited me to call him, a name that he loves to hear from anyone who will use it.

God just loves it when I call him Daddy.

Musical Monday: Cliche

The official video for the new single from one of my fave rock chicks of the moment, Eowyn. It's kind of a fun video, but the song is about how sometimes as Christians we just go through the church/bible study/prayer routine the same way every week until it loses any real meaning... and we become a cliche.