Maybe

I have been thinking about the word maybe lately...what a great word!...it sounds all kinds of wishy-washy to most people, but I have come to really appreciate its implications...I think I really started to think about it as I was writing my meditation for our Good Friday Service (see I Thirst)...my last paragraph used the word maybe eight times...throughout the rest of the meditation, I used other synonyms: possibly, perhaps, it could be, etc...this is a great word to have in one's vocabulary if one claims to be a Christian...I know, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen...I know that faith is supposed to be security in that what I believe about God and Jesus is fact...but there is so much about God and the Christian faith that is a great big MAYBE...God is so mysterious that it is difficult - impossible - to really wrap your mind around everything that is God...when you get to the point that you stop saying maybe about God, that means you have Him all figured out and can put Him in a nice small package with a bow on top...then you can distribute your knowledge and expertise to those around you because you do have Him all figured out...that's not the kind of God I want to serve...I want to serve a God that is so big and so amazing that I am forced to say maybe all the time...maybe God is this way, but maybe He is that way...maybe God meant this when He said _________, but maybe He meant that...look at the Salem Witch Trials, for example...I'm sure (or maybe) they were convinced that they were acting totally within the will of God and doing what He would want them to do...nowadays, we would question their wisdom...or the Crusades, same thing...so I guess the next time I say that I know something about God, maybe I need to say maybe...