This past Sunday morning I was walking through one of our halls at church, as I was walking a little girl, (about 4 or 5) walked in front of me so I stopped and let her go by and then I started walking again. Suddenly I felt a small person grab my leg, head pressed against my hip moving with me. I stopped and looked down to see the little girl clinging to my leg. I smiled great big and said "hi baby, are you ok?" She looked up at me with a stunned look on her face, she quickly let go of my leg and ran to her Dad who was only a few feet away. I smiled at her Dad and said, "she must have thought that I was you." We exchanged smiles and good morning greetings and I moved on.
My 3 year old baby girl does this to me all the time and my boys did it when they were younger, so I am used to having someone on my leg...normally it is one of my children. The next morning I was out for a 8 mile run...that means I have time to think and pray:) I was thinking about what happened in the little girls mind, that moved her to grab my leg. I know that the answer is quite simple...she had looked away for a moment and when she looked back she saw what she thought was her Daddy's leg and grabbed on.
I'm not sure how to say what I want to say next so I will just blurt it out. I cannot tell you how many people I see that have done this and are doing this spiritually. Put the experience I described above at the Mid-South Fair, and let the little girl grab the leg of a sexual predator and put a little more distance between her and her father...it makes you sick to think about it! Again, I see people that I dearly love doing the same thing spiritually. They have grabbed a hold of something that they believe is bringing them a deeper understanding of who God is, they believe this understanding is giving them what they have been missing in their relationship with God and at the end of it they find a wolf in sheep's clothing. Remember what Paul teaches us in 2 Corinthians 11:14 "No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."
What is your point in all this Mark? For those of you who have been on this journey with me for the past year, you know the focus, the passion, the delight of our journey has been God's awesome Word. As I have prayed about whether or not I should continue this "out loud" journaling, I was moved, I believe by the Spirit to shift the focus to the God of the Word.
I believe that God used two main motivators to bring me to this place...possibly three. First, was spending time praying and meditating on Jeremiah 9:23-24, “This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.” God is infinitely worthy of devoting our lives seeking to know and understand HIM! Not only is HE infinitely worthy, but there is an infinite supply of rich food for ours souls and we feast on our God as HE is revealed in HIS precious Word.
Secondly, I picked up my old copy of Tozer's work, Knowledge of the Holy. Do you see why I picked it up? It's in the title...Knowledge, knowledge of the Holy. Tozer says that “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Why would he say that it is the most important thing about us...important yes, most important? He gives us his answer.
“Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the Church will stand tomorrow.”
“It is not a cheerful thought that millions of us who live in a land of Bibles, who belong to churches and labor to promote the Christian religion, may yet pass our whole life on this earth without once having thought or tried to think seriously about the being of God. Few of us have let our hearts gaze in wonder at the I AM, the self-existent self back of which no creature can think. Such thoughts are too painful for us. We prefer to think where it will do more good – about how to build a better mousetrap, for instance, or how to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. For this we are now paying a too heavy price in the secularization of our religion and the decay of our inner lives.”
“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him...”
—A.W. Tozer
The third motivator is in the first two...there is a spiritual protection that comes with knowing HIM intimately. The little girl that grabbed my leg actually did the right thing...as soon as she heard my voice she let go! It was not the voice of her father. Remember Jesus words in John 10? 4 “When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 “A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jn 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
There is a spiritual protection, there is rich food and true satisfaction for our souls as we press into know HIM and finally Tozer points out our knowledge of HIM determines our spiritual future.
Just so you know, I will continue with the One Year Bible reading plan but my journal will focus on God. I want to take the next year to prayerfully gaze on HIS Names, HIS attributes or characteristics...to look at things like HIS triune nature, HIS Holiness, HIS grace, mercy, love, HIS self-existence and HIS self-sufficiency.
The other passage that God used to deeply move me this past year is Exodus 33...I won't go into it now, only to say Moses consuming passion was to know God's ways, was to see God's glory and to experience God's presence...that is it! That is what I long for in 2009...this is where our souls will be satisfied and we will be filled with joy unspeakable full of glory!
pursuing HIM together!
love,
m