During these first two months of 2018, I’ve made my way steadily through the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament). These books are rich (though at times rather plodding), but this morning’s reading struck my heart anew in ways I did not expect.

As Moses is preparing the children of Israel—after 40 years of wandering—to take possession of the land that was promised them, he stirs in their minds all that they have seen and received and leaves them with a sobering charge.

Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children…

…watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female… (emphasis mine)

— Deuteronomy 4:9,15–16 (ESV)

Firstly, the exhortation to “keep your soul diligently” stirred me profoundly. And the implications of neglecting this charge, “lest you forget” what the Lord has done, grounded me afresh.

We are forgetful creatures.

Speaking for myself, as one hopelessly absent-minded, I need constant reminders of who He is and what He has said. I can’t rely on my own recollection. I need to look to His word every day, to get into His presence, and to be reminded of His character, His majesty, and His nature—so infinitely beyond my own.

Secondly, Moses warns Israel against the temptation to create for themselves a god in the likeness of an earthly creature, “since [they] saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke”.

How entirely human it is to create an “image” to suit our own preferences in order to grasp and control that which is beyond us.

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In his book, A Grief Observed, the incomparable CS Lewis reflects on a similar phenomenon that I believe each person has experienced in some capacity—though few of us are actively aware of it.

Grieving the loss of his wife, Lewis observes:

I am thinking about her nearly always. Thinking of the H. facts—real words, looks, laughs, and actions of hers. But it is my own mind that selects and groups them. Already, less than a month after her death, I can feel the slow, insidious beginning of a process that will make the H. I think of into a more and more imaginary woman. Founded on fact, no doubt. I shall put in nothing fictitious (or I hope I shan’t). But won’t the composition inevitably become more and more my own? The reality is no longer there to check me, to pull me up short, as the real H. so often did, so unexpectedly, by being so thoroughly herself and not me. (emphasis mine)

The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant—in a word, real. Is all that work to be undone? Is what I shall still call H. to sink back horribly into being not much more than one of my old bachelor pipe-dreams? Oh my dear, my dear, come back for one moment and drive that miserable phantom away. (emphasis mine)

— CS Lewis, A Grief Observed

Later, he reflects on meeting an acquaintance whom he had not seen for 10 years and describes the experience as akin to meeting a stranger.

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The human mind is inclined to “fill in gaps”. Our memories of others so quickly become subject to our own processes, preferences, and perspectives, and—when not confronted by the subject themselves—will all too soon replace them with an image of our own making, a frail echo of the person we knew.

We need this friction of other, separate beings colliding with us, in order to save us from sinking into the smallness of our own limited experience.

This is no different in our relationship with the living God.

If I am not faithful to seek for an encounter with His nature each day, I risk being overcome by my own crooked perceptions.

I am challenged anew today to “seek the Lord at all times”, and to never rely upon my own limited understanding or corrupted remembrance of His goodness to me.

The holy, infinite Creator of the universe is utterly beyond my comprehension. His attributes cannot be replicated by my frail imaginings or projections. My humanity will never do Him justice.

It is only in constant communion with His Spirit, and constant study of His Word that I can vigilantly refresh my understanding of who He is and what it means to serve Him.