Oceans of Inquiry

Obviously, they weren't talking about knowing God, but it's a fundamental element of relationships: in order to (really) love someone, you must know them.  

I want to really love God, and I want to really know Him.  But I'm not entirely sure how to go about getting to know Him.  My memory is full of people who've touted various methods of how to know Him, and yet here I am, utterly clueless about Who God is and what He thinks about me.  I can't say that I don't have intellectual knowledge of Who He is--I can probably list off attributes pretty well.  But it's kind of like saying I know Winston Churchill because I know about things other people have said about him.  I'm not satisfied.  It's not the same as knowing someone firsthand.  

It's hard for me to even talk in these terms, because I can remember being younger and feeling very close to God, and I don't think that was an unreal experience.  I have true memories of His goodness and every day realizations of His grace, but for some reason, I still am left feeling like these are shadows of what He might really want me to see about Himself.  

The verse Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God just went through my head as a I mused that I can never look on God's full glory.  There are different ways to be seen and different ways to see.  Doubtless I am impure of heart, but my muddled understanding struggles with even knowing what being "pure of heart" is like.  I've heard that it's an "undiluted feeling towards something," but do we ever really have those?  (Or am I just that far gone to even ask?)  Wasn't Christ Himself torn at the thought of doing His Father's will at the Cross?  

Yet I know people who I would identify as being pure of heart--my sister is one of these people.  She pursues whatever she's interested in relentlessly; she never seems to get bored with her current "thing."  I'm not like this.  I bore easily (to the extent that I rarely finish anything, and have serious doubts that this blog will get used consistently), and never seem to be able to muster full excitement about anything--except perhaps things that piss me off.  Are these all signs of my selfishness?  

The wanting to want it I think must count for something.  I have had a sense of God working up a boil in me for some time--maybe the past three years or so--and I have tried to have patience with the whole process.  I wish I had a clue.  I know that's not the point, and that it might not even increase my trust.

And again we come back to knowing.  How can we trust what we don't know?  Sometimes even when we know, we don't trust.  Do I know God and am I ignoring that knowledge, entertaining self-flattering ideas of actually being clueless?

I have two ideas: the first is that I'm torn about what "knowing" is, and the second is that I should try to write down what I know about God.

"Knowledge," I am going to say, is akin to personal intimacy.  I'm sure there's some Hebrew and Greek and such explanation of how that is actually Biblically accurate anyways, and I should probably look that up, but I'm just going to leave it at that for now.

So what do I intimately know about God?

I know that He is vast.  I can't wrap my head around Him.

I know that He is love itself and exists in and as a community.

I know that He is compassionate and patient with His children. 

I know that He feels suffering in an even more real way than I do, and that my broken-heartedness towards suffering is mine as as an image of His. 

I know--sometimes--that He loves and delights in other people so much that He made them.  (I don't know this for myself, for some stupid reason.)

I know that He is the most beautiful, and loves creating beautiful things.  

I know that He is unchanging, and that we get our sense of sorrow for the changing world around us from our desire to be greater unified with Him.  

I know that He loves trees and animals and snow and oceans and all of nature so much that He made me to love them so we can enjoy them together.  

I know that He loves to hear people laugh truly.

I know that He moves mysteriously as a Holy Spirit, and delights in surprising people through moving this way.  

I know that He loves good work, and that Jesus once smelled like my dad's workshop.  (Those go together, somehow.)

I know that He loves language and likes hiding mysteries in things for us to find.  I know that He wants us to find Him in them. 

I know that He made men and women to work together in being His image, and it hurts Him when we don't.  

I know He's stronger than I can imagine.

He probably enjoys a good laugh, and often because of us.  (Three days in a fish's belly? Really?)

I know He wants to be known by us. 

There are more, but feel content with writing just those right now.  

Maybe the obvious answer that I am ignoring is that I should be reading the Bible.  I hate this, but right now when I crack open the Bible,  I am overwhelmed with all the perspectives of everyone else and fail to be able to see things myself.  I don't mean this to say that I don't think we should read the Bible through the lens of history and the Church.  Rather, I mean to say that I feel like when I read the Bible, the clamor that I hear in my head is that of all the people I've known who are fighting about what it all means.  And I don't know if I'm foolishly cutting myself off from the light or what I am doing.  I just... don't want any more lies.  I know many people do not speak them intentionally, but I feel saturated in them nonetheless.  I can barely think of God without being overwhelmed by a choking "Oh no, here come the Christians!" sensation.  And I deeply dislike that feeling.  I wish I could be to the point of having both peace with my own relationship with God and my experiences with Christians.  

A lot of people say that the problem is church organization or structure.  I'd love to believe that all we need is simple lack of organization or something, but I really can't buy that being the fix, because we'll still have tons of people involved.  So I can't toss everything out.  I just have to find my way within and despite my own fallenness and the fallenness of those around me.  

This is really hard for me; I'm an idealist, which is code for "extra stubborn."  I haven't been to church consistently in almost a year.  

Maybe that's part of being in the desert for some people.  I don't know.  I've had times like this before, where I just feel too ashamed to show myself at church.  I feel like a fake when I go, and I uncharitably assume that those around me are fakes as well.  This isn't actually fellowship, it's judgement and condemnation.  I don't know how to get over this.  I judge myself harshly, and then dish it out to everyone around me as well.  

I can go to youth group and not feel like a fake.  It's because I've admitted to them when I'm struggling, and almost all of them have done the same to me or Corey at one point or another. It's real fellowship.  We're all admittedly clueless and we're all admittedly weak.  It works great, even though it sounds like a blind-leading-the-blind scenario.  We seek out God's answers together. 

I know Jesus will keep me safe and show me where I'm supposed to go; I hope I am ready to listen and heed His words.   

I found this prayer through a discernment group I was part of, and it is my prayer on this journey:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope that I have that desire in all I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road thought I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

--Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude" 

Stupid technical question:

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If anyone out there who reads this knows how to paste in this thing, can you let me in on it?  Whenever I paste something, it goes into this strange little additional purple box thingy below my main text and doesn't make it into the post.  Help?