Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not yet fully seized us. ~Dallas Willard
Dallas Willard, renowned theologian and scholar, breathed his last mortal breath on Wednesday and woke up to beauty no words can describe.
And he was a man of words.
Dallas Willard’s writing, like strong lenses for lazy spiritual eyes, sharpened and shaped my view of God and the Bible in ways few authors have. His thoughts were not easy to follow–Willard wrote like the brilliant professor he was. But his books are worth a wade. In tribute to this great saint, I give you a taste of the joy Dallas Willard glimpsed from afar and now feasts upon forever. From The Divine Conspiracy:
Dallas Willard: Our God-Bathed World
“God leads a very interesting life, and he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.
“While I was teaching in South Africa some time ago, a young man took me out to see the beaches near his home in Port Elizabeth. I was totally unprepared for the experience. I had seen beaches, or so I thought. But when we came over the rise where the sea and land opened up to us, I stood in stunned silence and then slowly walked toward the waves. Words cannot capture the view that confronted me. I saw space and light and texture and color and power…that seemed hardly of this earth.
“Gradually there crept into my mind the realization that God sees this all the time. He sees it, experiences it, knows it from every possible point of view, this and billions of other scenes like and unlike it, in this and billions of other worlds. Great tidal waves of joy must constantly wash through his being.
“It is perhaps strange to say, but suddenly I was extremely happy for God and thought I had some sense of what an infinitely joyous consciousness he is and of what it might have meant for him to look at his creation and find it ‘very good’ (p. 62-63).”
There was no room in Dallas Willard’s theology for a miserly, vindictive or petty kind of god. His hope was anchored in Jesus Christ, who demonstrated once and for all, “the fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures.” Including you.
Is there one particular author who has shaped your understanding of God?
Photograph by Melanie Hunt
