Crunching across a ground just beginning to freeze, wearing faded jeans and a once quilted plaid jacket, now bereft of lining, a thought occurred in the recesses of my mind. Well, maybe more than one thought....
It was windy, cold gusts blowing through the trees, and it reminded me of the story of Elijah, fleeing for his life, trying to find God, but the voice of God was not in the wind.
The second thing I started thinking of is sort of ridiculous, but bear with me. I was thinking that if someone was teleported to my backyard today, they wouldn't have any way to tell whether it was fall heading into winter or winter heading into spring. The ground is the same temperature, it looks the same, there are no buds yet, but that's not to say they won't come. There is nothing to say whether we are freezing or thawing. Only our foreknowledge and experience let us know where we are in the seasonal cycle. I could measure quantifiable units, such as ground temperature, position of the sun, temperature of the air, and the facts would stand on their own, but the inference I make from this information is not absolute it is relative.
I don't know if I've been subconsciously processing this since Bible school seven years ago or if all the thoughts of this concept have been lying dormant and have just begun to awaken now that I've pulled out some of my physics work from high school and I'm beginning to link some of my high school physics theories to things I've learned about philosophy, community and faith. Or maybe it's because I decided to try and write a 400-500 word devotional on discipleship, using relativity as an example. (Please don't ask how that's going, I've re-written twice and I'm not sure that I've ever re-written anything in my life. I'm pretty much ready to scrap the whole project).
But the point is, I've been thinking about what it means to be absolute, versus what it means to be relative. Now, I've come up with my own definitions of each word, but I'm going to include the real dictionary definitions here, just for the sake of you normal people that may not think of super nerdy things the way I do... (and that's not a bad thing, either way).
An absolute is defined as being viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative.
Something that is relative is defined as being something that is dependent on external conditions for its specific nature or context.
Here in northern Canada, we often talk about the temperature like this, it's negative 35 Celcius today, but with the wind chill its negative 45. The actual temperature is -35, cold. But because of other external factors, we know to dress for even colder weather. We do this because we know that when we go outside it will feel colder than -35. Our perception of the temperature is different than the absolute value.
I've probably lost some of you by now. I apologize. For those of you still reading, awesome! I promise, it gets better from here.
Let's switch from physics to philosophy. :) No groans please.
A vast majority of people in society today, don't believe in moral absolutes. There is no such thing as good or evil, only our perception of a thing colors it as good or evil. These people believe in moral relativity: what's true for you, may not be true for me.
I thought about this too much as a 19 year old. I was close to walking away from my faith. In my head I couldn't reconcile relativity and absolutes.
I'm not writing this today to disprove moral relativity. I actually could probably have left out pretty much everything I've written so far today and still write what I'm going to write next.
Today, crunching across the ground, I realized something. My perception of God is relative to my experience, my emotion, the thought process. My perception of God is different than your perception of God, which is relative to your experience, your emotion and your thought process.
But God is not relative to my perception. What I think of God doesn't change who God is.
God is absolute. He is Himself. Nothing He does is out of character. What happens in my life does not change who God is. What I say about God does not change who He is. What you feel about God doesn't change who God is.
Because, God is.
Strangely, there is a great comfort in such a great Unknown. God is unwavering, and He is always at work in the circumstances of our lives. He works things together for good.
Joseph said it well, when he said to his brothers, "You meant evil against me, but God intended it for good, to save many people alive." Genesis 50:20
Despite the circumstances in our lives, we can fully rest in the confidence that our God does not change in our circumstances, rather He remains unchanged and will be our Rock in all things.
