To Hear or See God?? Which do you want?

If I had a penny for every time someone has said to me “yes I want to read my bible and pray more but I just don’t have time, I am too busy” I would literally be a millionaire by now! I have heard this over and over. In fact when I do hear it, I just want to shake the person and say “You have believed a lie!! it is not that you don’t have time or that you are too busy, it is that God and your relationship to Him is NOT important enough.” EESH! That sounds so harsh…cold…and something we would never ever in our pride admit to. But if we were honest with ourselves and before God, we would readily agree with that statement.

The beauty of that ugly sentence is this: when we do admit that God is not as important as He should be to us, there is grace and mercy to greet us. God knows our frame…knows we are dust and that even though we are saved we still struggle with the flesh. The Spirit and the flesh war against each other so that you do not do the things that you wish:

  “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” Gal. 5:17

A lot of times when God reveals a sin in my life…a wrong mindset…some way I am missing the mark and coming up short, my immediate reaction is to deny and or blameshift or just settle with “well that’s just who I am.” Ultimately though, all those reactions and answers to revealed sin are just me doing what humans have been doing since the first sin: trying to run/hide from sin. But when God reveals a sin in our lives, or a way we are coming up short it is because of His grace and mercy and He wants to help us to change. There is only mercy and grace and besides all of our sin is covered by the Blood of His precious Son Jesus.

There is NO need or reason to run, to hide, to blameshift. Own it, confess it, and be ready to be showered with the mercy and grace and strength to make it right and to change. We can do nothing in our own strength :John 15 …we need God! He will NOT be important to us, until we realize that His power is the only thing that will change our nasty self centered hearts to be beautiful God centered hearts. So are you struggling with one of the three key things (bible reading, prayer, attending church). Admit it, admit to God that He is not important enough to you and that is why you haven’t been doing ____ (fill in the blank). Confess it, and ask Him to cultivate in you a hunger for Himself that would drive you to His Word, to His lifeline (prayer) and to His people (church).

All the preliminaries aside, I want to dig a bit deeper into this whole “intimacy with God/Christ” thing. Is it really enough to just attend church twice a week, pray and read our Bibles everyday? Is that all there is to intimacy with God/Christ? Can it really be just boiled down to that? Are God’s Word, prayer and church the only places God reveals Himself to us? Or does His sovereignty and our journey with Him go beyond that? Are we missing the forest for the trees?

When we believe that intimacy with God/Christ only comes when we read the Word, pray and attend church we are putting God into our fancy little box. We have opened up our closet to Him, when He has asked for access to the whole house.

           

            My husband has only two cousins on his mom’s side. I have like 5 or 6 on each side. I know all of their names, birthdays and quite a bit about them. I even know some of my second cousins and all of their kids! So you think that knowing my husbands only two cousins on his mother’s side would be super simple right?

            There I was browsing through my facebook feed one day, when up popped a picture of one of his cousins. His mom had posted a picture of Carter and was congratulating him on graduating from college. I honestly did a double take. I was like “that’s odd because the picture is of Zachary, but she is congratulating Carter? His mom is clearly mixed up today! I better tell Josh and make sure he corrects his mother.”

Because clearly, I, who had only met these brothers once, knew them and knew which was which right?! Wrong!

After arguing (yes you read that correctly…I argued with my husband about which brother was which.) Josh finally helped me realize that I had the two mixed up. You see they both have red hair and brown eyes, but other than that everything else about them is completely different. Zachary (I hope I have this straight now) is short and super smart and very driven and knows what he is doing with his life. Carter on the other hand is much bigger and is not really sure what he is doing with his life other than working at a restaurant and partying. I thought I knew them. I thought I knew which was which, in fact I spent four almost five years of our marriage thinking and believing that Carter was Zachary and Zachary was Carter!

 Praise the Lord it was my husband who helped me before I was able to make a complete fool out of myself. And my mind was blown again when recently I learned that they are twins!! I learn new things about these crazy cousins I have only met once ALL. The. Time!

But that is because I met them once, and everything about them I have learned from other people (or I conjured up in my own mind what and who I thought they were).

 I am going to propose that many of us do that with God. We meet Him (come to Christ), but then we live off the shoulders of the faith of others. We listen to what others think/know about God and accept it, never really knowing Him for ourselves. We know He is Jehovah Jireh (God Who provides) because the Bible tells us and because we have seen Him provide for others, but have we experienced Jehovah Jireh ourselves?

            Have we ever had a need that only God could fill and watched as He filled it down to the last dollar, or item? After just 6 months of wedded bliss my husband and I found ourselves homeless and living at the church my husband was pastoring. You talk about Jehovah Jireh! He provided a home for us 3 months after we moved into the church. That was 3 months of us praying and asking God to direct us to and provide us with a shelter to call home. And we saw Him do it! We also came to the point where we were living off of 1000 dollars a month, and we had a our first little girl at the time. You talk about Jehovah Jireh?!?! We had two garage sales on two separate weekends. Both times we had a coming bill that next Monday that needed paid and  no money to pay it (living off of only 1000 a month). We prayed and sold items we could give up, and guess what?!? GOD PROVIDED the EXACT amount for the bills BOTH times! You talk about Jehovah Jireh!!!

Job talks of this very concept in Job 42:5:

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You.”

This was what Job said after all his troubles and after God put him through the ringer with questions like : “Where were you when I created the earth?”

What Job is saying here, is that he though he knew God. He was a religious man, the Bible talks of him making sacrifices.

He no doubt listened to story after story about God and what people up to that point knew of God. But it was all heresy. He did not know God for himself. And that’s where all his trials and troubles come into play. Trials and troubles in our lives happen for a plethora of reasons.

 But one KEY reason that is always true no matter what we face is that it is an opportunity for us to know God for ourselves. What Job was saying here is that he had heard whispers of God, he had heard of God by eavesdropping on another’s conversation with Him, but now his eyes saw God for himself.

When I miscarried, a lot of things went through my mind, but the biggest was shock. I could not believe the God I had “known” my whole life would allow this to happen. I miscarried super early on (4-5 weeks along maybe sooner). This kind of thing happens all.the.time and many women do not even know it. I knew it because I started feeling sick and so I took a test. WHY GOD?!?! Why did you make it so that I would feel sick and take a test? Why couldn’t I just be like many other countless ladies who lose a child and blissfully mistakes it as a period? Why did I have to know? I didn’t want to know because I didn’t want to believe that the God I had known was allowing this to happen to me. I wanted to continue on in my blissful relationship with Him. Where woes didn’t touch me and I could enjoy roses without the thorns.

            Now, looking back, I am so thankful He allowed me to know. That He got my attention and called me to a deeper walk with Him. I, up to that point had never questioned God. When bad stuff happened I just knew and trusted in God. That miscarriage rocked my world though. Suddenly I doubted the God I had always known. The temptation to see Him as a little boy on  an ant hill with a magnifying glass burning ants for fun suddenly became an all to real temptation!

But that was how God called me closer. That was God helping to open my eyes and see a new side of Him, a beautiful and yet painful side of Himself. Something I had only heard of before but now saw with my own eyes.

            Months after the miscarriage, I had just put my oldest to bed. I had made cookies earlier in the day and I had specifically saved her the paddle with cookie dough on it. She LOVES cookie dough (who doesn’t?). And I, in my great love and delight in her, wanted her to have it. Sadly, she refused to eat her supper. She was super upset about it, but dug her heals in and refused to eat her supper, so she forfeited the privilege of getting that paddle with cookie dough all over it. Later on, she had forgotten all about it. I prayed with her and tucked her into bed. As I was shutting the door to her room, my heart just ached. I had so wanted to give her that paddle, to watch her delight in the cookie dough that she loves. When our kids delight in something it just sparks something in us the parents doesn’t it? That is when it hit me. When God reveled more of Himself to me.

“Bethany, you had wanted another child after Miriam so bad. You longed for it, prayed daily for it. I heard. I saw. I knew. I wanted to give you another blessed child, but my daughter  I could not. Just as you could not give Miriam that paddle tonight because she had to learn a lesson about eating what is put before her. So you had to learn some lessons. You had to learn the hard way many many things. I had to get your attention somehow, and that was the only way. And my daughter, the pain you feel now because you could not give Miriam the paddle, is only a tiny picture of the pain I had when I couldn’t give you a child, when I had to call Simeon home!”

Tears streamed down my face. That is where I finally knew God as my Father. I am not going to claim that I heard all of that audibly, but I definitely heard that within my own heart. You see, our relationship with God is NOT limited to bible reading, prayer and attending church. It is SO much more than that! God is everywhere present all the time and He is sovereign over ALL of creation! He is working in and through our lives constantly. Not just when we read our bible for 5 minutes in the morning…or when we sit down and pray…or when we attend church on Sunday morning. NO! God is working all the time.

So do you know God only through what others have said (the Bible) or are saying (sermons/books/bible study etc.). Are you living on the shoulders of another’s faith? Or are you getting to know God for yourself? Have you opened up your mind, heart and eyes to see His hand in the everyday mundane things of life. Do you know Him for Who He is only because you have heard He is such, or have you SEEN Him for yourself?