To Know God

All of life should be viewed through the lens of the Gospel. A lens colored by who God is and who we are in light of Him. It's a top-down approach, one largely neglected by many of us who choose instead to see life and the world from our own vantage point. In this bottom-up approach, we falsely define God, our circumstances, and the world in light of who we are. We allow our views to subjectively contaminate how we see life and our Creator.

It's easy to do. It's easy to choose the wrong lens––to see God and our lives through the lens of suffering or the lens of betrayal or the lens of sickness or the lens of loss or the lens of discouragement. And it's certainly easy to allow our feelings to color what we see, but ultimately, if we choose any lens but the Gospel lens we pick up distortions and grossly misinterpret just about every part of life.

Truth is what we seek. Not our truth, not someone else's, but God's. He is the one who defines life and gives truth, not us.

J.I. Packer said, "Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.” Brother Lawrence wrote, "Let us occupy ourselves entirely in knowing God. The more we know Him, the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge, the more we know God, the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.”

True understanding, and perseverance through life's storms, comes with knowing God. In knowing who He is and how He sees us. Now, of course we will never be able to mine the depths of who God is, but committing ourselves to a life-long pursuit to grow in the knowledge of God is something that will yield unimaginable fruit. It's something we will never regret doing.

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