To Know Him

 

I'm still stuck on Philippians 3. Over and over again I keep hearing, "My goal is to know Him," repeated in my mind. Paul didn't say, "One of my goals is to know Him." No, he only had one goal. Pondering this, I've begun to wonder how many of us really, truly know Him.

Often, I think our saying that we "know" Jesus is a bit like someone who is a big fan of our president saying that they're friends with him. They may have read books about him, read his autobiography, watched him speak live, watched him every time he's on TV- maybe they've written him a couple of letters or they even shook his hand once. They could go so far as to sing songs about him and hang pictures of him all over their walls and write blog posts about him, (hmm...,) and maybe they say "Praise Obama!" all of the time and talk about him everywhere they go, but they still wouldn't even know him, let alone be friends with him.

So what would it take to be friends with our president? A one-sided conversation once in awhile? What about more frequent conversations like this:

"Hello, Mr. President! I just love you. You're so great....and, while I have your attention, could you please do something about this economy? And my ailing grandfather? And my low income? And my high taxes?"

Please don't think that I'm saying Jesus doesn't delight in answering our prayers, because I know for a fact that He does, but, even with many proven answers to prayer, can we really say that we know Him?

Not usually.

So what does it take?

I'm going to take our little example of being friends with the president a step further- what if our huge fan, with the exact same examples of their relationship, claimed that she was married to the president?

"But," you might argue, "if she never speaks with him or lives with him or experiences any intimacy with him, how in the world is that possible?"

Well, it's not.

Then how can we, who do the very same things that our fan does with Jesus in mind, claim to know Him in a way deeper than any relationship on earth, including marriage, can even come close to?

If all we ever do is sing Him a song and read a couple of chapters in the Bible once in awhile, we'll never know Him. And if we never know Him, we're never going to experience the beauty of a passionate love story with Him. And if we're not experiencing a passionate love story with Him, then we're not really living the Christian life.

So, again I ask, what does it take?  

Think, if you will, of a very dear friend. Someone you've known for a long time. Someone, if you have the privilege of knowing such a person, who knows you better than you know yourself.

What did it take?

Hours upon hours upon hours upon hours of intentional, uninterrupted time. Leaving yourself behind to become all-consumed with the mind of another person until you've heard all of their opinions and you know their thoughts before they become words.
He already knows us this way, but now it's our turn. And the only place to truly get to know Him is on our knees, having abandoned self and distraction in such a way that there is only One thing left to focus on.

"I want to know Christ..." Philippians 3:10