++I Pity the Fool++

   

Psalm 53:1 tells us, "The fool says in his heart, there is no God."  That scripture makes me feel like a small, white, female Mr. T.  I read it and think, "I pity the fool."


One time I sat in an adult Sunday school class and the teacher said, "If you think God comes to you in dreams in the bathtub, you are certifiably crazy."  I never went back.  Know why?  'Cause I don't see dead people.  I see God.

I see visions of me on a potting table made of old barn wood, with a one inch lip on all four sides for my fluids, just in case.  It's out in an open field and the sun is a brilliant yellow white.  I look like a life-sized, girl version of the board game, Operation.

God stands next to the potting bench.  His hands work inside me.  Tweeking a spleen.  Polishing a wishbone.  My friend I ask God questions to said it reminded her of this one part in Song of Solomon.  I love the translation that reads, "You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain."

Another time, I watched God hold my heart.  Actually, I just saw his hand.  It looked like the giant hand chairs outside the Cool Ridge store on High Street.  My body's engine was nestled in his ginormous palm and it was huge too--beating, throbbing.  Ba-boom, ba-boom.  ba-boom.  And it was aqua.  God knows aqua is my favorite color.

When I consider God, it's like I have to set off an M-80 in my brain.  Not to hurt it, but to clear out the junk--the recipes, pin numbers, and vocab lists from high school.  I have to do that to even begin to think on God.  He made and he knows every person--past, present, and future.  He is aware of every thought, prayer, and deed they will ever come up with before they ever do.  He intimately perceives the detail of every creature, each cell.  He knows the greatest thing beyond my peewee comprehension, and he knows the least thing ever--sub, sub, sub-atomic stuff.

Sometimes when I pray, I picture God and Jesus and heaven.  There was a lady mystic who did the same thing, centuries ago.  I read about her in an A.W. Tozer book.  I'm glad I'm not alone.  I spend a lot of time wondering if I'll be able to see the Spirit when I get to heaven.  Will He be a silvery aqua mist, hovering over us all?

Some believers poopoo me trying to envision God.  They say I'm trying to create my own God like that guy who wrote The Shack.  To them I say, am I so very different than Moses?  He wanted to see God too and Bible scholars call him great.  I just want to look at whatever God'll show me, even if it's his backside.

Sometimes I picture myself up in heaven with God and Jesus.  I sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor of the throne room.  In fact, I'm snuggled right up to them.  My left arm is looped around God's right leg, and my right arm hugs Jesus' left calf.  Don't ask me if their appendages are flesh, spirit, or polished bronze.  They just are.  God and Jesus pet my hair as I take it all in--endless worship, passionate intercession.  Folks are flinging crowns and those wild, flying creatures--all eyeballs, wings, and praise?  I come undone.

One time--  No, there's been lots, Jesus asked me to dance.  We waltzed on the crystal sea.  Perhaps it was the Sea of Galilee.  When we dance I'm a cross between a kindergartner and an eighth grader at her first dance.  The kindergartner part of me stands on my daddy's feet to be taller, to let him lead.  The eighth grader in me laces my fingers behind my date's neck and melts against him, longing to be one.  And then the best thing happens.  A hole opens in my chest and his.  My heart beats inside him and his heart beats inside me.  We are one.

I'm not making this stuff up.  I saw it all with the eyes of my heart.  It's not imagination or fantasy as some will no doubt say.  Those people who put God in a wet matchbox?  I pity them too.