I just read a great post about the mystery of God at Adam Moore’s blog (quoting Peter Rollins):

…revelation ought not to be thought of either as that which makes God known or as that which leaves God unknown, but rather as the overpowering light that renders God known as unknown. This is not dissimilar to a baby being held by her mother – the baby does not understand the mother but rather experiences being known by the mother.

I have lain awake nights struggling back and forth as my desire to connect with God clashes with the shallow images that come to mind. I’m sometimes reminded that atheists think God is just a reflection of myself, and in those moments I can’t help but wonder if they’re right. I don’t want to worship an image of God, but I want to experience intimacy with God.

The referenced post also quotes Meister Eckart’s prayer:

God rid me of God.

Rid me of my false images of God that are familiar and easy to talk to — almost like talking to myself — and leave just reality.

Brennan Manning writes about this topic in Ruthless Trust. (The book that inspired the titles of this blog.) He has a chapter entitled “Thinking Big” where he writes about the mystery of God. The chapter is so rich that it’s hard to choose a quote. He’s also writing about the glory of God as impenetrable light. Here’s a sample related to what I just wrote above:

The human tendency toward projection–ascribing to God our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about ourselves and others–is unmasked in all its absurdity. Distorted images and caricatures of God as vengeful, whimsical, fickle, and punitive (images that cannot fail to engender anxiety, fear, scrupulosity, and unhealthy guilt) are exposed for what they are–puny and pathetic human constructs. The same judgment is passed on the illusion of control. When life is tranquil, relationships intact, finances secure, and physical health flourishing; when the enemy is not at the gate; when the war drums are not rattling; when the Calvin Klein perfume advertisement for Eternity for Men seems plausible–then a sense of complacency, self-sufficiency, and personal command of one’s destiny deludes and lulls us. But the reality of the kabod (the infinite glory of God) shatters every delusion. As previous certainties desert us, we become vulnerable and open. The glory of God makes possible the primordial act of religion: the realization that we re not sufficient unto ourselves, that we have received our life and being from another…we freely ratify our condition as creatures. Through this fundamental act of dispossession we acknowledge the illusion of control and open ourselves to the reality of God.

On a lighter note, Manning jokes about his first year of teaching theology in a university. He writes:

Exuding a brisk air of professional enthusiasm and a suffocating spirit of hubris, I expostulated so brilliantly on the mystery of God that after one semester, there was no mystery left.