Three Ways to Get More From This Week's Podcast
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Shownotes
When people get a taste of God for the first time they use words like “saved,” “loved,” “found,” and “born again” to describe it. For some, it is quite an experience.
But these words have unintended consequences. They imply that we have come to the end of the rainbow with no need for anything further. Now that I’m all square with God, the only thing left to do is to wait around to die and go to heaven.
A much better way to think of our first encounter with God is the discovery of a new path. It is a joyful discovery and worth celebrating. But a long journey lies ahead, one that will be filled with even greater discoveries—along with trials and difficulties.
My own first taste of God was followed by some gut-wrenching lows. This wasn't supposed to happen. Where was God? How could I feel so “lost” if I had been “found.” Had Jesus fumbled me? Maybe I had never really been “found” at all. Whatever the case, I didn’t feel like I was at the end of the rainbow anymore. I was lost in space.
God is faithful. But a life of faith doesn’t end the day we hear the voice of God and take our first step down the path. Discovering the path is only the beginning. With each new insight comes a deepening awareness of how much we do not know. In our early excitement at making a connection with God we are like a student who thinks she knows chemistry because she has memorized the periodic table. The next day she steps into the lab and blows it up. Zowie! This is more complex—and dangerous—than she thought! Maybe she doesn’t have God all figured out after all.
Wise people know a lot. But there is something else they know: They know they don’t know a lot. Real understanding always comes with the awareness of how much you don’t understand. The more you know, the more you know we don’t know. Humans are finite beings in an infinite universe. How could it be any other way?
When life goes beyond our ability to explain, we turn to religion. We want someone to tell us what’s going on, what God is doing and how it all fits together. I felt this in the pleading look people gave me when they encountered problems in their life. I saw it in the faces of students when I showed them something that blew one of their neat theological boxes to smithereens.
Most of all, I felt it myself. As my life unfolded, my trail took turns I did not expect. It turns out that God is very difficult to train and doesn’t take my directions very well. There are things I was sure were true and would have fought over if you said otherwise. I was dead wrong. No only this, but I followed formulas that were supposed to be ironclad. “If I did “A,” God would do “B.” Well, I did “A.” God did “Z.”
John Newton’s words nicely express my first experience of God.
“I once was lost but now am found
Was blind, but now I see”
But since that first day many times it has been the other way around.
“I once was found but now am lost.
Could see, but now am blind.”
This is exactly as it should be. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want a God I can explain. I don’t want a God I can train or give instructions to. I’m glad to be learning and growing but I do not trust my learning and growth. I trust God. After all, Jesus never asked me to dissect and explain God. He asked me to trust Him.
There is an example of this in an encounter Jesus had with the Pharisees. If ever there was a group that had God all figured out, it was they. They knew who God was and what He wanted. They made up formulas for keeping God happy and tacked on ...
