God, the ultimate other
Isaiah 40:12-31
To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to?… Do you not know? Have you not heard?… He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth.
Isaiah 40:18, 21-22
God is different from you and me. He is really the Other in your life and mine. There is a sense in which other people are not truly other, because we are all remarkably similar. It is our similarity that enables us to know and understand one another. I am either where you are or where you have been or where you will be.
Our lives are intertwined in many ways. But when we approach God, we find the One we can truly call Other. He is completely different from us; the uncreated One, beyond our reality; the One whom we cannot trap in our life or our world. He transcends it all.
In this sense he is ultimately the One you and I have to face. I can run away from you, and it is possible for us to live without impinging upon each other. But there is no way for God, the ultimate Other, ever to be excluded from my life.
He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He is the last authority in your life, whether you acknowledge him or not, and he will have the mast word. God is the One you will have to face.
Let us not run from him like Jonah, but allow our lives to be given over to fellowship with the transcendent One.
This is an excerpt from a book This Day with the Master by Dennis F. Kinlaw. If you would like to buy this book please click here.