Frame, Pt 1

There is a Personal God who is very real and knowable.  This is the beginning of everything.

Allow me to introduce my frame.

This is the frame I use to answer the questions I get that start with, "Why would God...?"  I get those a lot.  When I do and I have a moment to explain my response, I give them the four pieces of this frame before dealing with the particular question.  Granted, people can reject the frame or the answer that comes because of it, but I don't have a better way of helping them understand life today and life forever and how they both work if not by this framework.  Today, I'll take the first piece of the frame and give a brief explanation of it.

All of life has to be understood inside this frame.  You get the canvas to paint your life, but its limits are set by these four truths.  The first is the truth of the Personal God.

The Personal God, as I am describing Him, is the God of the Bible.  He is relational in His nature - being one and also three, what theology calls Trinitarian.  He is a God who relates to His creation, speaking it into existence and ruling it even now by the Word of His Power.  Thus, He has not spun it into being and left it to go on its own according to the laws we have or will yet discover.  His crowning work of Creation was humanity, who are described as made in the image of God.  That means we have the capacity to see God as He is and enjoy Him for who He is and reflect Him to others.  That's the basics of the theology.

But there's more.  This God who created you and me also burns with white-hot passion, longing for us to know Him.  He is desirous to show Himself to us consistently and clearly.  He sings over us joyfully.  He knows our every move and thought and word.  In the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, God is there with us.  And His heartbeat in all of those moments, all of those places, all of those circumstances is to be seen and known and enjoyed.

For clarity, this is no mere intellectual exercise.  This is the grasp of God by faith, an exercise of the soul.

It all begins here.  The whole world began with a Personal God.  Everything in the world (including understanding and wisdom) begins there too.

This is foundational:  God knows and can be known.