Knowing God Vs. Knowing About God

This is long. Really long. I'm sorry for that, and if you don't want to read it, I completely understand. For me it is a way to work (write?) out what I feel God is doing in my life at the moment.

So y'all know (or at least I think you know) that I decided to start this year off seeking God more and working to move forward in complete freedom in Him. Did that sentence make any sense? Anyway, I've spent a lot of time reading, studying, and praying.

I read, and loved, "Think Differently, Live Differently" by Bob Hamp. That was an accomplishment in and of itself, because as much as I love reading, I don't really love reading nonfiction. But it was a great book. One of the key ideas that I came away from the book with was the concept that we often see freedom as getting free from something whether it be anger, fear, an addiction, a bad relationship, etc., but in reality "to be free is to be able to act and react fully out of who you were designed and created to be, regardless of the circumstances of your life or the behavior of the people around you" (From "Think Differently, Live Differently" listed as location 603 on my Kindle). I mean think about that for a minute. Being free isn't about not doing something or thinking something. Being free is about being everything God created you to be.

So anyway, I've been trying to figure out who exactly it is that God created me to be. Not in an identity crisis sort of way. Although, I do think that without Christ in our lives, we have a major identity problem, but I want to fully understand who I am to God. Like I said, I've been praying and reading and talking to God about this. But if you want to know the truth, sometimes I feel like God doesn't talk back. I don't mean literally, but you know there are some people who say, "God showed me this" or "God showed me that". First off, I know some people throw that around way too much and use the whole "God showed me" line to get people to do what they want. But there are people who God really does "talk" to, and I guess I had always just assumed I wasn't one of those people.

But then I started to realize that God will talk to everyone and anyone if they will just listen. The problem is I'm not a listener. I'm a talker, and I tend to hijack conversations. So I may be praying a lot, but I'm not listening much. And what a concept to think that prayer is actually a two-way conversation.

Okay so I've said all that to say this, early this morning, I was kind of drifting in and out of sleep, when I had the thought, "You know a lot about Me, but have you ever taken the time to really get to know Me." Okay, first of all, I know without a doubt that "Me" is God. And second of all I realized that since that is about the only time of the day or night that I'm both mentally and physically quiet, it's about the only time for Him to "speak" to me. I use the word "speak" loosely, because I did not hear an audible voice. Like I said, it was more of a thought, but I know it wasn't really my thought.

I started to think about what God was saying to me. Yes, I'm a Christian and yes, I do know Him to an extent. But a lot of times my Christianity is very one-sided. I tell God my problems, and I expect Him to solve them. I talk to Him a lot, but I don't communicate with Him like I should. Communication is a two way street not a one-sided conversation. 

I've been in church as long as I can remember. My team always wins at Bible Trivia. I know all the answers to all the Sunday School questions. I know a lot about God, but now it's time to grow up. It's time to get to know God not just as a problem-solver or a rescuer but to get to know Him just for the sheer pleasure of knowing Him. So I'm going to start listening more and talking less. I'm going to read my Bible not only to find scriptures that inspire, lead, and guide me, but also to really get to know God and His character. I know that on this side of Heaven, none of us will know Him in all His fullness, but that doesn't mean that each day we can't know Him just a little bit better.