From an early age we learn
to associate, categorize and label, this is one of the ways we make sense of
our world. A few of us become so fixated on organizing every nuance of life we
become the obsessive Type A personality. I used to be one of those, more like a type
A-plus. Everything had to be perfectly ordered in my world or I was seriously
miserable, which meant I was miserable quite often. I liked things categorized
and neatly put away in their place, not only
material objects but also beliefs, doctrines, opinions, rules, regulations and people. I was very proficient
at labeling people, placing mental descriptions on them and filing them away in
a preconceived category in my mind.
I also became very accomplished at putting
my ideas about the God I had learned of since childhood, in a box and nailing
down the lid. Placing God in a box didn’t mean He was actually restricted to
one or ever has been. My notions of Him were all in my mind. But time and circumstances have a way of
changing us and I have come to understand that God doesn’t do boxes and neither
should I.
During a day visiting our
nearby Sea World, I was reminded how much God likes messing with me, popping
the lid off my ‘boxes’ and stirring up my perfectly categorized little world.
Just about the time I think I have Him figured out, He shows me that it is impossible for me to fully
comprehend His ways. He doesn’t see like I do or think as I do. His ways are higher,
wider and deeper…unlimited. While there is order in His creation, He left enough
mystery to illustrate His divine sovereignty and mixed it all with a bit of
humor. I picture Him chuckling as He presents a new clue just to keep me
wondering.
As Mike and I wandered leisurely through Sea
World enjoying the beautiful landscape and many creatures, we stopped by a
small water feature, a waterfall and pond built for ducks and other water
loving birds. We leaned against the railing for a long time, absorbing the
tranquility of the scene. The many varieties of ducks were happily swimming,
quacking, wagging their tail feathers and preening themselves and other than
differing feather colors and configurations they had much in common.
Now everyone knows all ducks quack.
It’s one of the things we learn as a toddler playing with our first alphabet
toy, ‘D is for duck, the duck says quack.’ Then there’s the idiom we hear, ‘If
it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it’s
probably a duck’. But none of these labels applied to one duck that we didn’t
see at first, only heard.
“Who keeps whistling?” Mike asked, as
he looked around.
I visually swept the area around us.
No one was in sight at the moment and I realized the sound was coming from
behind a shrub next to the water’s edge. “It’s something over there,” and
pointed toward the bush. Just as I did a bird walked into the open. He looked
like a duck in some respects, web feet, beautiful feathers and a wide, rounded bill
but had a long giraffe type neck and when he opened his mouth to quack, out
came a loud sound similar to a person whistling to get someone’s attention. We stared at him then looked at each other and
laughed.
“Can you believe that?” Mike said.
“God makes all ducks to quack then He has to throw in one that whistles…
amazing!”
We found out that this species is called
the (surprise!) Whistling Duck and comes from South America. Since then I’ve
discovered the Barking Tree Frog. This guy doesn’t croak like other frogs, but makes
the sound of a Pomeranian puppy high up in a tree in my Florida backyard, or
how about the Upside Down Jellyfish who sits on its’ head on the ocean floor
with tentacles in the air waiting for food to float by or the several varieties
of Walking Fish whose fins act more like legs than rudders. Some people attribute
these oddities to evolution; I prefer to accredit them to a divine Creator who
enjoys throwing in a bit of surprise now and then just for fun.
We have a need for God to be
humanized, to fit into what we can understand, but by an act of faith, dismantling
the limits we have constructed for Him allows
us to be receptive to the unusual and the impossible. The Spirit of God continually comes in many
ways, even through nature (Romans 1:20), and attempts to take apart the
confines of our heart so that all that is not truth and all that restricts us can
be swept away.
I’m not a Type A-plus personality
anymore. Over the years, I’ve been systematically and happily demoted to possibly a B-minus and
what freedom comes in discovering it is God’s job to keep all my ducks in a
row, not mine. Whether they quack or whistle,
I can trust Him to keep my world ordered, even when I don’t fully understand!
Romans 11:33 (NLT) Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and
knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his
ways!
