knowing God.

To know God is the greatest accomplishment in life, ah! but to know. What does it mean to know?

The definition of “know” is “have personal experience of, be absolutely sure of.” Now, are we absolutely sure of God? Surely, that says if we know Him or not. How are you sure of something that cannot be seen, you ask? God can be seen, I see Him in you, I see Him in the trees, I see Him in the creation all around me. Yet, I’ve never seen His face. I can’t trace the contours of His face in my head, I can’t feel His rough and beaten, hole-filled hands, I can’t look in His untraceable eyes and see the yearning and aching for lost souls that Jesus feels. Then how, you say, can you know God? Maybe, I don’t know, exactly "how-to." He’s called each of us, I presume, differently to each of His chosen. For me, on one hand, it’s easy to look at the sky, the water, and the sun and moon and know that there’s a God. Something or Someone must have created this sphere we call the world. It’s easy for me to say that God’s out there and He’s watching over me and directing my steps, it’s safe. But is it? He’s leads me in the strangest ways, in the strangest fashions. I find myself looking back on weeks and months and wondering how I got to where I am. When I search for Him, He finds me. He finds me even if I’m not looking. It’s like I have a target on my head and He won’t leave me, even if I flee from His sight and rebuke Him, He still finds me. It’s beautiful, the ultimate love.

I wish we, as humans, could understand that love, think about how the world would be different if we all loved with God’s love. Forgiveness would never fail, patience would be abounding and love would never end. But, somehow, I can’t help but think we’d mess it up. It’s human nature, right? We all sin and we all fail. No matter how close and how much we know God, no one can be as perfect as He is. I guess that would be God’s definition. Perfect. But oh! that doesn’t even begin to describe Him. I talk so often with Him and ask Him to give me a word to describe Him, but none comes. Just the soft whisper that He’s there, watching me, waiting patiently for His child to step in faith. The word I’m looking for doesn’t exist in our dimension. Beautiful, glorious, wonderful, holy, they all fall short of describing Him fully. I think He did that on purpose, so we would have to use more than one word when talking about or with Him. It all goes back to knowing Him. He calls us to know him, and who said we could love Him with one word? Can we do that with our earthly relationships? No. Relationships take time to grow and change, there are trials and misunderstandings, good times and bad times. All God wants from us is everything, is that so much for Him to ask for? He did create us. Shouldn’t an artist be entitled to His work? That’s the difference between Christianity and other religions, God came to us. He took on the form of a servant, a child, a wrongly accused criminal. He became disgusting to His father, died a horrific death and gave everything for us, so He could be glorified through us. Now, all He wants is everything from us, and He even gives us the choice to follow Him or not. The “everything” He wants is, purely, unadulterated, uncontaminated time. Yes, time. Time with Him, for Him and around Him. Just as a girl wants to spend time with her crush, or as a young boy wants to spend time with his new puppy. Just time, just talk, just openness. That’s all He wants. Don’t be afraid of it. He created you, it’s not like He’ll be surprised that you wanted to kick the slow old lady in front of you at the grocery store, or the time you ate a cookie when mom told you not to, or the time you lied to your loved one. He knows all about your sins, trials, imperfections, and pains already. He wants to heal them, grow them, change and rearrange them. Let Him, He really knows what He’s doing. Step in faith and challenge yourself to truly know God. I know from personal experience that we'll never know Him fully, so we'll always have more to learn. Keep seeking to know God.