Thoughts on the journey

As a follow up to my last blog, let me just say, there are a lot of you out there with tremendous faith and courageous stories. Thanks for responding and giving me a glimpse of what is right and good about traveling the journey of faith.
Secondly, let me say that if anyone tries to tell you exactly who and what God is, is trying to fool you, take advantage, or is deeply misguided. This, by the way, includes me. Over the years I have come to view scripture as the equivalent of asking a 5 year-old to define true love. They simply don't have the vocabulary, experience, or mental capacity to do so. Scripture (even though we believed to be inspired) is man's attempt to convey the nature of God, and it is simply inadequate to do so.
On the same note, any theory we have about the nature of God is our feeble attempts to articulate what we feel and believe, but is completely inadequate to encompass the entire nature of God. Any theology is problematic because it is our attempt to describe God, and will always fall short.
With all that said, let me give you my current take on the nature of God and my continuing quest to understand the nuances of prayer.
It seems to me that the God we follow is a God of integrity. You might say, well, DUH! But let me explain. I think God put in place certain universal laws that are inviolate. As a tip of the hat to my daughter-in-law, mathematical laws were constructed by God and developed by man. Consequently if God is a God of integrity, 2 + 2 = 4, both in our world and in His. Because he is a God of integrity, he lives by these laws just as we do. This lies in conflict with oft-repeated claim that God can do all things. Well, yes and no. He cannot do the things that are strictly against his nature (sin, deceit, etc.) He developed the natural laws and we live by them, as he does. He allows the world to spin in an orderly fashion, the seasons come and go, we age, life is on a time-line, short for some and long for others, but these are natural laws that God allows to play out.
Now scripture does tell us that God occasionally steps in and changes the course of history by making exceptions to the laws for a brief moment in time. We refer to these as miracles. Do they still happen? I don't know, it is not my place to determine what God can and cannot do. But it seems to me that every time these "exceptions" were made, it was to further his plan of reconciliation with his creation.
It is also helpful for me to remember that scripture deals with a minuscule number of events in the scope of human existence. Millions of people lived and died, in pain, in suffering, praying and wondering and they were never mentioned in scripture. Were there more occurrences of God's intercession than was written? I would guess probably.
I am not a pure "deist" (God set the world to spinning and stepped back to see how it plays out) I'm not a "determinist" (God set all events in place before time began)
I'm not an "openness" (God can only know what can be known, in other words he can't see the future either)
And so and so on.
So I pray everyday, hoping that my words will be heard. Living with the suspicion that God will make the best decision based on his overall plan. He loves me like no other, but not to the exclusion of what he trying to accomplish. I live with the hope that he cares enough to weep with me when crushed by pain or death or suffering when he finds it impossible to answer my prayer the way I hoped.
One final thought. Our development of our personal theology is, in fact, a journey. We continue to develop, grow, gain insight, understand that our theology changes with the application ( I understand my being ill, which is fine, I don't understand my children's suffering. Consequently, my theology looks different with alternate applications) But we need to wrestle with these concepts, because in the struggle, I think we see a little of the nature of God that syncs up with ours. You see I think he struggles dealing with us, just as we do with him.
Anyway, Godspeed.
Don