Here's the post. Oh poetry. . . . I think by now, if you've been reading these blogs much at all, you know how I feel about these things. If you haven't, why are you reading this one before the previous ones? Shoo, shoo. ;) And that's why this post will be going in a slightly different direction than many.
So it might not be clear at first what the first paragraph has to do with the second. Reading that blog post - to me - was like watching that scene in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers where Gollum and Smeagol are arguing with themselves. (If you haven't seen it - it's the same person with two personalities.) There's the one voice that keeps saying Christian things. Then there's the other voice that keeps saying things that are pretty much lacking in foundational faith. And it goes back and forth and back and forth. An example so you know what I'm talking about:
"Oh Father
Be with me
Be near me
Don't leave me
Don't hurt me"
Oh, Father, be with me; be near me. - That's a normal Christian thing to say/pray. I think that's something most of us who've had any kind of hardship have prayed - we pray for God to be EXTRA close; we pray for help, for guidance.
Don't leave me; don't hurt me. - I can honestly say that is not ever something I've thought of saying to God before. Don't leave me? Maybe she didn't know about Hebrews? "I will NEVER leave you, nor forsake you." Don't HURT me? The God I know only hurt One of His children and that was for the sake of redeeming all the others.
But going over her poem is not the point of this post. The point is to draw a distinction between things we know in our heads and things we know in our hearts. And there is a HUGE difference in how we act by where we know a thing. For instance, I know in my head that one day somebody in my immediate family is going to die. But that will probably not be known in my heart until it happens. You see this type of thing a lot, too. Two people who loved each other who argued and fought and then one of them died. And what happens? It's suddenly all "real" to the one left. And often, the one left gets a perspective they didn't have before about just how ridiculous so many of the things that they care about are. Things went from being head knowledge to being heart knowledge and it makes a difference in how they live.
There are a lot of people - particularly in Western culture, I would imagine - who know a lot in their heads about Jesus, about Christianity, about how to live properly in this world. But they don't know it in their hearts. It only makes so much impact, because it's only so deep. It doesn't reach down into their souls and move their very being. It just sits in their head. And that, I believe, is where a large portion of the people who say, "But Lord, did we not do such and such in thy name?" come from. Those people who knew in their heads, but never understood with their hearts - and the head knowledge isn't enough because Jesus says to them, "Depart from Me; I never knew you."
Now I would be loth to bring up such a dangerous topic without offering some kind of idea for how to know. (To be very clear, these are ideas, not a list, not a definition, not a "if this, then this.") First, resolve to be honest, which is harder than it sounds because we have deceitful hearts that like to trick us, like to shift blame, like to get out of feeling guilty or responsible. So resolve to be honest and work at it. And it's work.
Second, take an honest inventory of why you do things. Look through your day and ask yourself, why did I do that? Was there something that made you worry today? Why? Was there a person that showed up and you walked the other way because you wanted nothing to do with them? Why? Did you lie? Did you cheat? Did you slander? Did you gossip? Did you purposefully misrepresent in order to get something or get out of something? Did you shift blame? Did you withhold the truth to save yourself embarrassment? Was it at the expense of someone else? Did you question God why such and such happened to you today? Did you wonder why He "just had to bring THAT person" into your work place? Did you get angry with Him?
I don't know what happened today; I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I know we fail a lot, so we have a lot of opportunities to look at the why. And it's not just looking at what came out - in fact, most of it is looking at what stayed in.
If your reasons are about you first, they're not about God first. If you're always questioning His purposes, His promises, His character, you're not trusting Him; you can't question His promise and rest in His promise at the same time. There are two ways to ask "why?" One, is questioning motives because you think they're off. The other is curiosity, because you want to understand whoever you're asking. Ask yourself "why" the first way. Try to only ask God "why" the second way, otherwise you're saying He's doing something wrong.
And if you're always accusing God - even if you didn't realize it - you're not walking with Him. And it may be you're not walking with Him because the knowledge is only in your head, not your heart.
In closing: If you are a Christian, the best thing to do for this (and pretty much everything else) is lots of Bible study and prayer. And I don't mean Bible reading. I mean study. I mean meditating on things; I mean praying about specific things; I mean looking at commentaries and not being too proud to ask people what they think about it. Ask God for wisdom; He's promised to give it to those who ask.
If you find that you're not a Christian, that you don't really know Jesus in your heart, here are some things you might want to do: Read the Bible, talk to a pastor or two or three, ask people to pray for you, and ask Jesus to reveal Himself to you, so that you can know Him.
Oh, Father, be with me; be near me. - That's a normal Christian thing to say/pray. I think that's something most of us who've had any kind of hardship have prayed - we pray for God to be EXTRA close; we pray for help, for guidance.
Don't leave me; don't hurt me. - I can honestly say that is not ever something I've thought of saying to God before. Don't leave me? Maybe she didn't know about Hebrews? "I will NEVER leave you, nor forsake you." Don't HURT me? The God I know only hurt One of His children and that was for the sake of redeeming all the others.
But going over her poem is not the point of this post. The point is to draw a distinction between things we know in our heads and things we know in our hearts. And there is a HUGE difference in how we act by where we know a thing. For instance, I know in my head that one day somebody in my immediate family is going to die. But that will probably not be known in my heart until it happens. You see this type of thing a lot, too. Two people who loved each other who argued and fought and then one of them died. And what happens? It's suddenly all "real" to the one left. And often, the one left gets a perspective they didn't have before about just how ridiculous so many of the things that they care about are. Things went from being head knowledge to being heart knowledge and it makes a difference in how they live.
There are a lot of people - particularly in Western culture, I would imagine - who know a lot in their heads about Jesus, about Christianity, about how to live properly in this world. But they don't know it in their hearts. It only makes so much impact, because it's only so deep. It doesn't reach down into their souls and move their very being. It just sits in their head. And that, I believe, is where a large portion of the people who say, "But Lord, did we not do such and such in thy name?" come from. Those people who knew in their heads, but never understood with their hearts - and the head knowledge isn't enough because Jesus says to them, "Depart from Me; I never knew you."
Now I would be loth to bring up such a dangerous topic without offering some kind of idea for how to know. (To be very clear, these are ideas, not a list, not a definition, not a "if this, then this.") First, resolve to be honest, which is harder than it sounds because we have deceitful hearts that like to trick us, like to shift blame, like to get out of feeling guilty or responsible. So resolve to be honest and work at it. And it's work.
Second, take an honest inventory of why you do things. Look through your day and ask yourself, why did I do that? Was there something that made you worry today? Why? Was there a person that showed up and you walked the other way because you wanted nothing to do with them? Why? Did you lie? Did you cheat? Did you slander? Did you gossip? Did you purposefully misrepresent in order to get something or get out of something? Did you shift blame? Did you withhold the truth to save yourself embarrassment? Was it at the expense of someone else? Did you question God why such and such happened to you today? Did you wonder why He "just had to bring THAT person" into your work place? Did you get angry with Him?
I don't know what happened today; I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I know we fail a lot, so we have a lot of opportunities to look at the why. And it's not just looking at what came out - in fact, most of it is looking at what stayed in.
If your reasons are about you first, they're not about God first. If you're always questioning His purposes, His promises, His character, you're not trusting Him; you can't question His promise and rest in His promise at the same time. There are two ways to ask "why?" One, is questioning motives because you think they're off. The other is curiosity, because you want to understand whoever you're asking. Ask yourself "why" the first way. Try to only ask God "why" the second way, otherwise you're saying He's doing something wrong.
And if you're always accusing God - even if you didn't realize it - you're not walking with Him. And it may be you're not walking with Him because the knowledge is only in your head, not your heart.
In closing: If you are a Christian, the best thing to do for this (and pretty much everything else) is lots of Bible study and prayer. And I don't mean Bible reading. I mean study. I mean meditating on things; I mean praying about specific things; I mean looking at commentaries and not being too proud to ask people what they think about it. Ask God for wisdom; He's promised to give it to those who ask.
If you find that you're not a Christian, that you don't really know Jesus in your heart, here are some things you might want to do: Read the Bible, talk to a pastor or two or three, ask people to pray for you, and ask Jesus to reveal Himself to you, so that you can know Him.
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