If you missed Charity’s previous post, you can read it here.
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
All last week I agonized over these two verses. Finally, I closed my notebook and went to bed. Frustration overtook me and I finally said, “God, I don’t understand, and I am angry at you for not helping me understand.” I went to bed angry. I woke up angry. I lived my day angry. I was angry for being so angry at God. I was angry because I did not understand why I was angry. I was angry because my frustration of not understanding seemed so silly compared to the struggles of others around me.
Does anyone else ever feel like that?
Angry that they can not understand God and His Word?
Angry about something that is good but causes you to spiral in a tornado of thoughts?
Angry because others are facing much harder trials, yet you still feel crushed?
I struggle with this daily. I feel guilt for being frustrated at God when others who are dealing with far greater trials have so much more reason to question Him and yet they are choosing and striving to trust.
What God continues to show me is that He is big enough to meet both of us in our heartache and confusion. God does not rank trials like we do. He sees each of our hearts and knows us so personally that what seems to be small to one person is huge to another. He does not stand over us with condescending looks saying, “Really you are struggling with that. Joey is over here in prison for me!” (Sorry if your name is Joey!)
God sees whatever we see as a trial as significant and deeply desires to walk through it with us. Do not believe that what you are facing is insignificant and that God doesn’t care about it or that He should help someone else who deserves it more. At the present, you cannot always trust your feelings, but you can always trust the Spirit’s Word. He cares. He wants to help you.
All that to say, I want to apologize for not having a post last week. I sat down to write it and I think Satan took advantage of my tired mind and turned my heart cold towards the beauty of this passage.
I am thankful God redeems and used that experience as hard as it was to show me again the depth of His mercy and love. He showed me that its okay to get frustrated at not being able to understand when we so desperately want to. I think that there were probably some things that Jesus did not understand while He was on earth because He was fully human.
As I reflect on these verses, I realize that last week I was thinking of “knowledge of His will” as something abstract that we must figure out, but He has already made it known to us. What I really think this verse is talking about is knowing God personally and relationally. After all, Scripture is a narrative of this very thing. It is about God beckoning His beloved to come back and commune with Him once again. That is His will for us.
Is that mine as well?
Do I seek to know God personally?
Am I trying to psychoanalyze Him when all He wants is for me to know Him as He fully knows me?
Do I seek to know about God, why He does what He does or what He requires, or do I seek to just know Him for Him no strings attached?
Why would I not want to know Him as Father and Friend?
That is what He is offering! But so often I treat him as a project to figure out and not as the God-man to love.
When I know God, I will better (not fully) understand what He does and why He requires us to live according to His terms. Knowing God personally only comes through the Spirit. He is the one that takes us into communion with the Trinity. I constantly need to be reminded that the more we know God as He desires to be known, the more I will walk in a manner pleasing to Him, and HE makes me bear good fruit for HIS glorious name. And the more the Spirit produces this fruit in us the more we know God.
I was talking to one of my sisters this week about what it looks like to walk and grow in the Spirit. She said that God not only wants us to know him with our minds but emotionally with our hearts. In our culture, I think it is easier for us to know Truth in our minds but to experience it in our hearts is much more uncomfortable.
But God is so much deeper than our minds. That is a fine place to start but He does not want us to stay there. He wants us to open our hearts and allow the Spirit to connect us to Himself emotionally as well.
My sister gave the example of Keagan knowing me, my likes and dislikes. But he also knows me much deeper emotionally through the experiences we have shared together. Good and hard times have drawn us closer together and that is exactly what God wants for us as well. He wants us to know Him emotionally and experientially. He wants to take us out of our boxes and give us a deeper and more intimate relationship with Himself than we could have ever imagined.
Are we ready for that?
Are we ready to be taken deeper emotionally with God and begin to experience what He created us to all along?
It is not easy. It requires sacrifice, stillness and surrender. It means continuing to knock and believing that He hears and will answer.
That is where I am right now. Learning how to keep asking for more, believing He hears and that He is answering though I may not be aware of it. I used to think that God was not listening to my prayers when I would ask for more of Him and to know Him deeper. But I am beginning to see that I was just not listening and seeing how He was answering because I was too busy with life to pay attention.
I do not know where you all are in your walk with God, but I believe no matter where it is there is always more of Him to know and to experience and that is His will for us. The journey is long and confusing at times, but my prayer is that you take time to practice asking for more of God even when you do not feel like it. Then, stop, listen, and be still as you wait for His response.
Don’t give up. This process must be ongoing and continuous because knowing God intellectually and relationally is His will for His children, and it is in knowing Him that we bear fruit for His glory.
I encourage you to live a life that is increasing in the knowledge of God.
Thank you for allowing us to serve and encourage you today. If this post was an encouragement to you in any way, please let us know and consider sharing this post to encourage someone else.
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