A while ago I got my hands on a very old copy of Moby Dick. Published in 1930, it contained breath-taking charcoal sketches. Quite unexpectedly, I grew more deeply in love with God with each turn of the page. You may ask, why?  How?  Isn’t it just a great work of literature about an obsessed sea captain who gets everyone killed in the end? Yes, but stay with me, because I’d like to share a secret I gleaned from the book.

What captured my imagination was Captain Ahab’s obsession with finding Moby. To everyone else the voyage felt mythological, to all but Ahab.  He had the wooden leg to prove it. The sound of his limp could be heard on deck, a reminder to everyone this whaling trip would be like none other. The story fuses obsession, with his maniacal drive to find and capture the Beast at all costs.   

I began to wonder, do I chase God with this kind same passion?  If I was honest, not really. Over the past couple years I’ve had my own sea battle with God. My harpoon in hand, and my eyes on the prize, it’s felt like He’s burst from the deep and capsized my craft, throwing me into the water. Not only that, in my mad pursuit to ‘capture’ Him, to try to understand the why behind my pain, He’s inflicted a wound. Yet, strangely, it’s put an even greater desire in me to keep the chase on, to plumb His depths.  I never thought that a deeper understanding of God would look like defeat. But today I understand how much more He loves me than I had ever believed.   

In our human toil and struggle, God redeems more than is lost.  After a long voyage of illness, alienation, or even discipline, can I say God is still the good God I always thought he was? He’s the same, but my eyes of faith don’t see so, I see him more clearly. The past few years have brought lessons home to me that have shown me he’s not able to be captured. Like the White Whale, he always swims on, even when my best attempts are made.  That’s when it struck me that the story of Moby Dick mirrors my view of God.     

Moby Dick swims on, just as God does, for “God is enthroned in the heavens.”   All our attempts at ‘capturing’ him, or better put ‘figuring him out,’ by either theology, or through books, famous authors, even reading the Scriptures and seeking Him in prayer, can only take us so far. He is above and beyond us, untouchable, yet knowable.  He can’t be wrestled down to an idea by either imagination or genius.  He is God, and because he is, that makes him Holy, Pure Love, Powerful and in control. I can’t love him to the extent he deserves, unless I know him to the depth of his character.

So, as I finished the story of Moby Dick, I did fall in love with God again.  What a beautiful Savior.  This uncapturable God is my own Abba Father. He’s yours, too.

A good friend of mine said, “there’s no reason to think we’ll ‘tap out’ our intimacy with God. It can only grow until heaven, then it’s complete.”    He was saying that God is unfathomable, yet we will find him, love him, and obey him to a deeper and more profound level as we grow older, wiser, and more desperate.  The chase for God only ends when our gaze meets heaven.