Knowing God

When I was young, I heard a lot of conversion stories. We were Baptists, so we called them testimonies. Testimonies were a big part of the story of Christianity, as in the story of how one becomes a Christian, how one comes to know God. You see, everyone has a testimony. Some are pretty basic, and some are pretty, well, interesting.

The testimony that many people have is of being born into a family of Christians and growing up to be Christians. Perhaps there's a part of that testimony that involves a few years at Bible College or something. But then there are the interesting testimonies, stories chock-full of sin and vice. I have to admit, they may have been a bad influence to hear at a young age, but they were tons of fun. When you're young, you hear the story as a pretty basic tale of sin and salvation in which the former wanderer emerges unscathed and saved by grace. While the "saved by grace" part is true, I think the wisdom of a little age tells us that the former wanderer probably doesn't feel completely unscathed after those years of wandering.

Nevertheless, I always wanted to have whatever those former wanderers had. I mean, I didn't want the years of sin and all of that, but that wasn't all that they had. What they had was a sort of gratefulness for all that they had been given by God. It always seemed that they somehow knew God in a way that I didn't and probably never would. They talked freely of how God had rescued and saved them. This I couldn't understand at all.

I grew up in a family of Christians. We went to church every Sunday and most Wednesdays too. I went to Christian school, so when we went to church, I knew all of the Bible stories better than anyone in Sunday School. I memorized Bible verses quickly and even won memorization contests. In short, my soul was fine, and I had much to be proud about.

But, there's that word "proud." Sure, I was winning awards for memorizing Bible verses, but, to be honest, I just liked winning. In fact, I loved and still love winning. And, I won a lot. Winning feels good. Getting good grades feels good, and I've generally been good at both of those things, save a few lazy years in undergrad. So, I've had a lot to be proud about. I should be proud of me. Except that, being proud of me meant that I didn't need anyone else telling me what to do. In short, I didn't really need God. Except that I did.

The thing is this. I already knew God. I'd known all about Him from the time I was very young. And, to me, knowing God meant going to church and being good and praying that He would forgive your sins. You could also pray for people you knew who were sick or something. And, to do those things was to follow God and to know Him.

But, that's not how the people with the really interesting testimonies talked about God. The way I understood knowing Him was pretty sterile compared to the way those people talked about Him. I mean, they talked about God like they really knew Him. They spoke of God rescuing them like someone might speak of a person who'd dragged him out of a burning building. And, it seemed like they talked to God as if He was someone you could really talk to. And, they always, always seemed grateful.

It was the grateful part that seemed hardest to understand. And why should it not? You rarely find people who are both proud and humble, proud and grateful. That combination doesn't work very well. To be grateful for something means having to admit that you needed help in the first place, and I'm not someone who needs help. Except that I am. Except that we all are.

So, in some ways, I now get to be a convert, to have the excitement of someone who is just coming to the Bible and to a relationship with God for the first time, having spent some time away from reading the Bible, from knowing God. In some ways, we all get to do this, even those of us who've never left. We all have the opportunity to come to these things fresh and new, looking for that which we've never seen or heard before, constantly seeking to understand God and His Word in a new way. When we think of it that way, how exciting is all of this? It's something more than just religion, really.

And I think of that in my Bible Study. We begin each study with the discussion leader (yes, the same woman I accosted after the first study) reading from the Bible. And, after she reads, she says, "This is the Word of God." And, this being a Baptist church, she's not waiting for us to respond, "Thanks be to God," though that's what I'm used to saying. No. Rather, she's simply saying, with all of her heart, with all of the excitement she has, with all sincere belief and a huge smile on her face, "This is the Word of God." It's as if she's just read to us from a letter, written to her from someone who loves her more than anyone possibly can. It's that kind of excitement. And, I have to think that that's what it's meant to be like. Even though there will be troubles in life because we're all human and have to deal with such things, that feeling of true love must be what it is to know God, to understand His unfailing love for us and His unending desire that we come to know Him.