Monday, January 02, 2006

I am reading Don Miller's book, Searching for God Knows What. And it is lining up w/everything Larry Crabb and Brendan Manning and Piper and Packer and who knows who else out there writes for us to want to KNOW GOD. Writes to us about finding the piece that is missing in our lives. Piece / PEACE that is missing. I read the Bible and IT is what has made me fall in love w/Him, w/the person of Jesus Christ, but I don’t think I would have read the Bible if I hadn’t been looking for , acknowleded that I was looking for something to make me feel… …important, or valued or affirmed or ………
Now what I am coming to find out or learning or discovering or maybe more just beginning to be intrigued with, is that God knew I was going to do this. He knew because HE made me to want to KNOW HIM. He made all of us that way, without Him, seeking Him, being found by Him we are incomplete.
I mean from the very beginning, Adam and Eve who had it all. All the food they needed. Each other and even walked w/God in the garden of an evening. They were given everything they needed and wanted MORE. Only one tree in the garden they couldn’t eat from and that’s the one they wanted to eat from, tell me you haven’t been there. Had a table full of sumptuous food and you still want……something else or MORE. Had a closet full of clothing and wanted more. Had the perfect job or life or marriage or family and still felt like you wanted more? (They even were able to walk around naked without feeling weird about it and they wanted MORE. )
How that had to break God’s heart.
Now just writing this brings up all sorts of questions. Like why did God create us in the first place, He had the perfect community. The three of them had everything they needed and God decided to create an imperfect bunch of YoYo’s who were going to do nothing but break His heart??…..And He created us in His likeness and even gave us Free Will, knowing that we would take THAT and use it against Him…..???? WHY????
And this is where I have to go back to….I don’t know why and be OK with it.
Some people will read something like this and say BS, there is no God. But me……I love that there is and that He is that indefinable, that confusing, that frustrating. I love it because I read the Bible and KNOW that He created us...... for His pleasure (?) and if you don’t like it…then I guess I feel bad for you.
Feel bad that you think you know so much that you either just believe it without question and go through life w/knowing only a minute fragment of what there is to know. That you go by someone else’s rules and doctrine and legalistic BS instead of taking the time to start looking at Him and asking Him the questions and reading His word and really spend some time getting to know Him.
And if you don’t believe at all, then I feel sorry for you that you know so much that you think there is nothing else to know. That you are so sure of and in your disbelief that you won’t spend some time and just STOP and in the quiet, the silence of your own thoughts answer that piece that keeps gnawing at you…. That part of you that in the dark struggles w/accepting yourself.... that piece of you that is never content....that piece of you that is miserable......That you don't start asking questions.... find a place to ask questions, that you don't let anyone see that you are not quite as together as you work so hard to appear. That you wall yourself off in your own knowledge and will die without experiencing something that is pretty darned …..confusing and yet clear…..frustrating and yet comforting….. You think you know and really all you know is what YOU want to know.
What if there is a whole life out there just waiting for you to experience it? What if there is something that would make your life…. messier for sure and yet your children, your circle of influence would benefit greatly from watching you struggle. Would benefit not only NOW but in an eternity promised to those who take the time to get to know and accept ALL that He has been trying to tell us, give us…from the very beginning????
I was one of those people. I knew it all. I had it all and still wanted MORE. I am still there more often than I would want to admit. Contentment comes and goes, and yet more and more I am becoming content and in that contentment comes acceptance of others and a whole lot less of me needing anything from someone else…..don’t get me wrong I don’t have this, ANY of it figured out…….but it sure is fun MOVING towards something rather than always being so flippin scared as to run away from EVERYTHING…..

3 comments:

Curious Servant said...

First... about the comment you left on my blog... you are so SWEET! Thank you.

Now, a comment to this post.

I liked the latest book by Miller even more than his first.

I think God wanted to create us so that we could experience love. He had to give us free will for it to be meaningful.

I like the way Miller writes. Makes me want to try my hand at it.

Anonymous said...

Don't you just LOVE Donald Miller? I love his writing, and this book is no exception. Hey, how's the youth group going?

Melissa said...

I have been asking and asking and asking the why's lately and you know I'm blessed in the not knowing...we all have God shaped holes that only He can fill...I will never understand why He puts up with me, but I'm so glad He does...what a beautiful and passionate mystery you are revealing Becky...

(I'm so glad I'm back!