God is Real

God is real, you can know Him personally and intimately and once you do, there’s more. It’s an eternal pursuit, a perpetual longing so we need never settle into a smug “I’ve got God all figured out” way of living. We can wake up each day eager for what we might be taught from and about Him, eager to share and learn from others. We don’t have to be anxious or fearful just careful that what we teach and discover is consistent with what He’s given us in His Word.

I can’t begin to tell you the hours and hours of angst behind the above paragraph. I know what you’re thinking, “Duh! You say those things all the time.” Lately I’ve been listening to and reading a bunch of different Bible teachers on both sides of the concept of knowing God. Some that tell us God will pick out your clothes for the day and others that say the Bible is the only place you can hear from Him. The one thing they have in common is their insistence that they’re right. Combine that with the crappy way many Christians treat each other plus those on the outside and you have good reason to struggle with some tough questions. The answers to those questions are found in the seeking, urgently needing to hear from God whether it be in His Word, through His people or however He may choose to get through.

All that to say, sometimes it’s good to have what you know challenged in order to dig deeper and know more certainly how much God loves and cares for you. Aw, just read the first paragraph.

Like A Child

“What I like about Jesus’ message is that we don’t have to study Him anymore to know Him. That’s what the religious people at the time were promoting. Collecting information about someone is not the same as knowing a person. Stalkers are ordinary people who study from afar the people they’re too afraid to really know. Jesus said that unless you know Him like a child you’ll never really know Him at all. Kids don’t care about facts, and they certainly don’t study each other. They’re just with each other; they do stuff together. That’s what Jesus had in mind” – Bob Goff, Love Does

Knowing About Jesus

“I get paid as a lawyer to collect information and memorize facts, and I’ve gotten really good at it. What I realized about my faith is that I was doing just that, collecting information and memorizing things about God. I collected pictures and gathered artifacts and bumper stickers about Christianity, and I talked about knowing Jesus like we were best friends, when actually, we really hardly knew each other at all. And I memorized Bible verses and the names of the books of the Bible in order and the sequence of a bunch of events as well as who was there. At some point I had to confess that I was stalking Jesus. I was actually creeping myself out a little and I realized I was probably creeping God out too. So I decided to stop.” – Bob Goff, Love Does

In the Still of the Night

I heard a story on the radio recently about sleep. They mentioned a paper published in 2005 that revealed much evidence that before electricity the common sleeping pattern was for us to sleep for 3 or 4 hours, awake for an hour or so and then return to sleep. The story also cited an experiment completed in the ’90s where a group of people were put into total darkness for 14 hours each day and after a period of adjustment they fell into the same pattern. The reporters speculated that quite possibly this was how we were designed.

I can totally see God creating us with a built in time set aside for being alone with Him each day. Next time you wake up in the middle of the night instead of fighting to get back to sleep, take advantage of the opportunity to be with Him.

I’m Afraid

There are many who keep God at a distance out of fear. They may be afraid that He’ll ask them to do something they don’t want to do or send them somewhere they don’t want to go. I’ve even heard some say they’re fearful that if they get too close He’ll take them to Heaven before they’re ready. This is not God. He doesn’t want us to be afraid. He’s not asking to be our boss so He can order us around at His whim. His desire to be involved in our lives is not for His benefit at all. He completely wants what is best for us. You see God doesn’t have some need to “be first in our lives”. There’s no scorecard. We don’t end our day checking off the list: prayer – 1 hour, devotion – ½ hour, served lunch at the mission – 2 hours… slept 7 hours, dang God didn’t come in first. What He wants more than anything is to be involved in all of our life. Certainly study and prayer but also work and play. He wants to be included in our laughter just as much as in our tears. We needn’t be afraid. What He has for us is so much more than what we want for ourselves.

Here’s a great podcast that touches on this: The God Journey

Come Back

Do you ever have those times when God seems a little distant? You know something is not like it could be so you start to worry about it and put a plan into action. You determine to read more and pray more and before you know it you’ve taken the relationship completely into your own hands, religion has taken over and you aren’t any closer than when you started. I wonder if God might want to say, “slow down, rest, come back over here I haven’t gone anywhere. Don’t try so hard, Let’s just be together today”?

Left Behind

Even on our best days: we wake up with a greeting to the Lord, make time for Him, study for a bit and then check off our list and go about our day. We might pray over meals and say our goodnight but how much did we leave Him out of? Imagine what the day might look like if we invited Him along throughout.