Lack of...

I got the most recent Justin McRoberts CD for Christmas. It’s called “Grace Must Wound Before it Heals”. Specifically track #2 caught my attention last night… throughout the entire song he repeats a line that began to pull heavily on my heart.

“… change the way you see…”

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I don’t understand GOD. I only think I do, but in reality, I don’t. The only god that I understand is the one that the world has invented. This god isn’t necessarily a bad god by any means, he’s just… unrealistic. This god is too simple. I sit in services sometimes and feel like I’m being taught about this god; not GOD. Not my GOD. Not our GOD. Not the GOD in the Bible, but only a fairytale god to make life seem easy and simple.

GOD isn’t simple, and being a Christian isn’t easy... a couple of years ago I heard a speaker say this:

“The Christian life isn’t hard… the Christian life isn’t even difficult… the Christian life is impossible. There’s only one guy who was perfect at it, and it isn’t you and it certainly isn’t me…”

If we are unable to live the Christian life, then how could we ever fully understand the One who invented it and lived it out perfectly?

I don’t understand GOD… only the god that my world has made up.

If I knew GOD, like actually knew and understood GOD, I know for a fact that my life wouldn’t look the way that it does.

If I was able to grasp the broken heart that GOD feels on a daily basis for His people, my life would be different.

If I was able to comprehend how much GOD Loves His children, I know that I would be living a different life.

I think in my 21 years of living, I’ve only experienced and known GOD’s heart for a total of [maybe] 85 minutes. Specifically during one of these ever so brief moments, I was taken into the depths of His heart. I could feel His sadness. I could feel His joy. During this time I… slightly… understood GOD’s broken heart and His Love.

Think about it… if we really knew the sadness that our Father feels for His people, would we really continue to sit around watching 24 or playing Xbox for hours on end? I think a lot of Christians talk the talk, but rarely ever walk the walk… myself included.

I know that in those brief moments that I knew GOD’s heart, all I wanted to do was serve Him and change the world… but the feeling faded. I still want to serve Him and change the world for Him, but sadly… I confess that it’s not the only thing that I want to do… I get caught up in worldly important things.

And then there’s love… GOD is Love, so it only makes sense that we don’t understand Love or GOD. Because the only love I understand is the love the world tells me about. If worldly love is GOD, then I don’t want it.

But thankfully love and Love are completely different.

If I understood what real Love is, then my life would be different. I know that I wouldn’t be selfish… GOD isn’t selfish because GOD is Love. I know that I wouldn’t be rude… I wouldn’t be impatient… I wouldn’t be jealous… I wouldn’t be envious.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible to love, because as humans we do have the ability to love, yet it’s skewed. We can love, but we can’t Love. We cannot Love like GOD Loves because GOD is Love and we are not GOD. But even knowing that I don’t have the ability to Love like GOD Loves, so much do I desire to, and so much do I strive towards knowing that kind of Love.

I want my desire to know and understand true Love, to be so significant that my entire life changes.

I want another moment of slightly understanding GOD’s broken heart, but this time, that the affect of this moment hits me so hard that my entire life changes.

People say that love isn’t perfect, and you know what? They’re right… love isn’t perfect. But Love is perfect. GOD is Love and GOD is perfect. You do the math…

So do you understand GOD? Because I don’t…

We don’t serve a simple GOD… our GOD is too big… and too Great… and too Mighty for us to fully understand. Our human minds cannot grasp His Goodness, thus concluding that we cannot grasp Him.

“…change the way you see…”

If we understand God, we would live differently. We would never be offended by the things that He does.

If GOD asked you to quit your job in order to take a position working with the homeless, making a significantly less amount of money, without explanation, would you be offended that He would ask you to do such a thing?

Would you be offended if GOD asked you to break off a relationship, romantic or friendship, without explanation?

If GOD asked you to stop serving in a specific ministry position without giving you a significant reason, would you be offended?

If we understood GOD, we wouldn’t be.

But if we are offended… who are we serving?

Shouldn’t we believe and trust that all things our GOD calls us to do will ultimately serve His Kingdom and bring Him glory, even if we can’t see that at first? Do we really think that our GOD would call us to do something that would destroy us?

Maybe this distrust and disbelief in being taken care of comes from our understanding of love – the definition of love the world gives.

But Love… if we knew this Love, truly knew it, I guarantee that we would never be offended.

GOD isn’t simple… because if He was, we’d probably have this Christian thing down…

But we don’t.

I want my eyes to change.
I want to know brokenness.
I want to know Love.
I want to know GOD.

“There’s something bigger going on, there’s Someone bigger then me… so fill me with the knowledge of GOD, with the knowledge of You, with the knowledge of the Holy, Holy.”