Todd Hunter (00:02.84)
God is an interesting word. If you spell it with a capital G, well, we all have associations with it, right? Spell it with a lower G, God, and well, who knows what we mean? When we're thinking about Christian spirituality, whatever the word God, capital G means, it at least means non-human. Something, in this case, someone, utterly different than human.

We mean to refer to the creator of humanity. Pause.

Todd Hunter (00:43.598)
Okay, let's go. That creator stands outside of, but connected to what he created. Recently, I think it was through my wife Debbie, but it might've been one of the kids. We became logo, sorry. We became Lego central. Our house is full of Lego. And it's very clear that those bricks are under our control.

as long as we can obey those specific directions. Or think about a kid with a fish tank. Clearly the kid is not fish. He's not in he or she's not in the tank. There's a difference there. And that difference is super important, not just in terms of defining God, but it's important that the creator God obviously be something, someone different than what he created. So, though, can he?

Does he relate to us? Like, I can't really relate to those plastic bricks. The kid can't really do much to deal with the fish in the tank. So how does this beautiful, important otherliness of God work with Christian spirituality? As I said, can God really relate to us? Does he really relate to us? I mean, what about all the pain and confusion, loss, the unfairness and grief?

that we all sense. Well, there's a passage in Micah seven verses one through seven that in a sense is a story of God's people. in there, Micah says, what misery is ours? No grapes to eat, no early figs that I crave. The faithful and the upright are swept from the land. Everyone lies in wait to shed blood. The judges accept bribes. The powerful dictate what they desire. They all conspire together.

But as for me, Micah says, I watch and hope for the Lord. I wait for God, my savior. My God will hear me. Now, this is beautiful core language for everybody trying to walk with Jesus. But as for me, given everything that's happening in the summer of 2025, I watch and hope for the Lord.

Todd Hunter (03:06.784)
I wait for God my Savior. My God will hear me. This one who is other, utterly other, he hears me. Now this is the kind of spiritual knowledge that's not technical theology. It doesn't come from thinking rightly about God so much. It comes by experience. For instance, in Psalm 27, written in one of David's times of hardship,

Hear the lived experience how David knows that God sees him, how he's heard and known. David says, So one thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord for all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling.

He will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. That's the kind of lived experience we're shooting for with the transcendent God who is eminent, who is with us in our daily troubles. Or think of the story in John 11 where Lazarus has died. His sisters and best friends are with Jesus. They're sorry. Let me start again.

Or think of the story of Lazarus in John 11. He's died. His sisters and best friends. Gosh.

Or think of the story in John 11 where Lazarus has died. His sisters who are best friends with Jesus are confused about his death and about Jesus' delay in coming. But when Jesus comes, there's that famous two word verse, Jesus wept. So what we learn from this is the holy other God has made himself

Todd Hunter (05:15.224)
deeply present to us in Christ and since John 11 and the coming of the Spirit now through the Spirit. So Jesus knew loss. He knew the human feeling of loss. Lazarus, his friend, is dead. The ladies are accusing him of kind of spiritual malpractice. He knows the loss of that. He knows that they are struggling, misunderstanding the resurrection.

He understands the attacks of the Jews, that why didn't Jesus do it right according to their expectations? And so this just alerts us to the notion that Jesus is subject to our same human feelings, but without sin. Even though he knows he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus has compassion for human suffering of all kinds. So when we think, does God even care?

Jesus wep.

Todd Hunter (06:18.04)
Does God even understand what I'm going through?

Jesus Web.

Where is God in my hardest moments? Jesus wept.

When Jesus saw the sin and pain of Jerusalem, he wept. He is, as Isaiah 53 portrays him, a man of sorrows and acquainted with

Well, the psalmist applies this to us in our walk with God in Psalm 34 18 that says, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Since I was a very young convert teenager, images like this, again, it's not so much these words or like technically understanding these words because, you know, we've done the right.

Todd Hunter (07:20.426)
exegesis and our hermeneutical approaches, right, and all that kind of stuff. But this has been so imaginative to me and evocative to me that God knows the hairs on our head, the number of hairs on our head. And so go back to the beginning where it's so important that God is wholly other than his creation. Yet is so present to it. That.

When the gospel writers searches for a way to explain how close he is to us, there's this imagery of knowing us in great detail. So whether you're bald or got a head full of curly hair, and no matter what color it is,

The idea here is God is present to us in deep specificity. Or Jesus said another time, consider the sparrows. You know, they're like, they were like the least, they were like sort of flying rats or something, you know, they were kind of the least, the most common, not really thought of in any special way. And he says that they're seen by their Father in heaven and cared for.

So again, this is Jesus and the biblical writers kind of straining to find evocative imagery that would help us see that God is our source of hope. His care is our source of confidence in this life. And these things like us dwelling in the rock, you know, being secure in the rock, being exquisitely known, even the hairs on our head, being cared for even as the sparrows.

For the biblical writers, this is also a sign of what is to come of that beautiful imagery in Revelation 21. He will wipe away every tear. There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Todd Hunter (09:30.156)
Or think of this lovely text in Lamentations 3.

Or think of this beautiful invitation of Jesus in the last part of Matthew 11. If you're tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I'll give you rest. And so it's this biblical picture that allows us to be, as Paul said in Romans, joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer.

So wherever you might be today, driving in your car, listening to this, going for a walk, sitting and having a drink of something, I want you to see today, I want you to know that you are seen and you are known. Even though the world and the flesh and the devil challenge this notion every day, the words of Jesus are coming true.

They are true and will someday be fully and finally true. In me, you have peace. But in the world, you will have tribulation. Nevertheless, take heart, Jesus said, for I have overcome the

That is you someday. And you'll experience bits of this every day. Overcomer. Victor. Freed from fear. Whole and healthy. Body, soul, and spirit. Secure from the hard-heartedness of ugly leaders. Taking deep breaths of freedom. And

Todd Hunter (11:43.252)
exhaling thanks for the one true creator God who is wholly other unto his trinitarian self is deeply richly and experientially present to his people.

Todd Hunter (12:03.554)
Done.