Getting to Know God

Knowing God

We started to help out at an Alpha group last night. What is Alpha? An outreach that invites people to learn a bit more about the Christian faith. We have five guests in our group, Altogether a wonderfully eclectic group – all with their own questions and hang-ups. Only God knows where they will all be in 12 weeks time when the whole course is completed. This morning, talking about it, I thought to myself, do I really know God?

I suppose I do know Him in some ways but not in others. We all do. Talking to a good friend, he said that if we knew and understood God; if we could explain Him fully, then we would be like Him and there would be nothing left for us to learn. His actual words stuck with me - “The finite can't grasp the infinite, which is really good because I don't want a God I can explain or understand for then I too would be God.”  In other words God is infinite and eternal and we cannot yet fully understand either of those two words in the context of God.  The words of Ecclesiastes 3:11 reminded me too.  “ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

The more I thought about knowing God the more His Word came to mind - “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.” Psalm 139:6. Is this what I meant the other day when I wrote about an un-reasonable God? That we cannot reason nor explain nor fully understand God because it is too far beyond the comprehension of mere mortal minds. Yet man has tried to fathom God; man has tried to explain God and this is probably the reason that we have rejected Him – because we cannot understand Him. As the Word of God puts it so succinctly. “Yet they say to God, ‘Depart from us, For we do not desire the knowledge of Your ways.” Job 21:14 – We do not desire any knowledge of that which we find incomprehensible.

I wonder how many have fallen short at this point? How many have rejected God because they do not understand Him? Yet so many brilliant minds have grasped God for who He is because they cannot explain away the mystery of eternity or infinity. Perhaps this is because these dimensions belong to time rather than to a realm we can quantify.

All I know right now is that we are responsible for a small group of enquiring minds that are seeking to discover what it is that we believe about God and about Jesus Christ. That is exciting and daunting. It is daunting trying to answer some unanswerable questions but it is exciting to see the Lord Himself involving Himself in the whole process and revealing Himself to these wonderful people little by little, week by week. Some will maintain their rejection of Him to the end, but all we can do is to sow the seed and allow Holy Spirit to do His work in them. Others, though, will allow the light to break through and we will have the thrill of watching them accept Jesus for who and what He is – Lord, Saviour, Son of God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

What a privilege we have – thank you Lord.