A New Definition

Tonight, I dug deep into my podcast library and found one I didn't know I have. Apparently, I subscribed to the RadioLab podcast forever ago and forgot about it. I listened to one they had entitled "Words." Now, in case you can't tell, words have ALWAYS fascinated. The entire idea is fascinating. The way we define things, label them, assign meaning to them, and with those words, we assign values to them. Words contain a mesh of feeling and emotion, coupled with the distinct ability to hand them to another person. The power of language is absolutely phenomenal.

I've been spending a lot of time with Hannah lately, the 2 year old daughter of Lorin and Leslee. She is in that stage of life where she gives everything a name. I was over at their house last night, and she points to herself and says "Princess!" (They were playing dress up.) She went around and showed me "Table" "Chair" "Josiah" "Blanket" "Hair" and probably a lot of other things.

 The discovery of language is something that changes us. It changes the way we perceive the world. It gives us the ability to define and analyze everything in our world.

What happens, though, to the things that surpass words? 

For a society that is totally dependent on language, how do we process that which doesn't fit language at all?

We worship our God through music, through the study of His word, through prayer, through those repeat-after-me things we used to do in church, and through listening to His people. All of our processing of Him, it seems, comes through words.

He, God, is bigger than words. God defies every definition we could provide for Him. He is more than God, Gut, Dios, Gud, Isten, Bog, and भगवान. He is more than any adverb we could put before that name. 


Our language is too feeble to capture God's goodness. 


So how do we comprehend that? 


How do we worship a God that defies our compulsion to define?