The One Who Sits on the Throne

Lately I've been on a hunt for God. 

I've been reading each chapter of the Bible, starting in Genesis, and underlining every verb that God does.  Then I try to understand what this must mean about who He is.

Because I want to know God.  And I mean really know Him.

I want to know what He loves and what He hates.  I want to know how I can make Him smile and what things I do that break His heart.  And I want to be filled with a fear and awe of Him that Sunday School never really gave me. 


And since I'm ADD (not really but sometimes I wonder...) I flipped to the back of the Bible last night and started reading Revelation 4.  I wanted to try to reconcile in my mind the God that I was seeing in the Beginning with the God I see at the "End". 

This is what I read:

"After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.  And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.  Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.  From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.  Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back.  The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.  Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“‘Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,’

who was, and is, and is to come.”

 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever,  the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

 “You are worthy, our Lord and God,
    to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
    and by your will they were created
    and have their being.”"

I just sat in awe.

This is our God.  This is our Maker and the One who is worthy or our very lives.  This is the One we are to serve with our lives - simply because he is worthy.  Simply because He was, and is, and is to come.

And I imagined standing before this King and kneeling down before Him to present myself to Him. 

And I had a familiar feeling that I've had only a few other times before. 

It was the feeling of standing at the edge of a vast and plummeting canyon.  A canyon so beautiful that you cannot take your eyes away from it, and so terrifying you cling to the railing for dear life to keep from falling.

This is the feeling I had when I imagined standing before my God. The God who is so beautiful that His beauty can barely be described by the most beautiful things of Creation, and so powerful that His power and greatness can only begin to be described by the most terrifying and powerful things of Creation.

This is our God.  A God of beauty so sweet that your deepest desire is to be a part of it.  And a God so powerful and holy and worthy, that you are knocked off your feet and fall back with fear of being too close.

And I realized that worshiping my God for all of eternity will not be as boring as Sunday School taught me after all (...sitting on clouds with little harps).

It will be just about as boring as skydiving into the Grand Canyon.

Forever.