Knowing God, Knowing Self

We don’t all need a vision to wake up; what we need is to have our eyes opened. The Fathers and Sages and Wise men of all of Christendom have referred to this waking up as knowing God. But they don’t refer to it as some mere intellectual enterprise. We don’t know God by mere fact. We need to see Him, experience Him, enjoy Him. Not just in our heads but with our whole selves.

God is always speaking to us, and all gentle urgings, those Divine Interruptions, they matter. All of God’s leadings are of the same caliber. It is still the infinite, the Transcendent, stepping into the finite, drawing near, and revealing Himself.

Often our desire to know Christ only by facts hampers our ability to see Him and experience Him. What we all need are glimpses, peeks into more of His Fullness. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

There is so much that obscures our vision, so much that clouds our ability to see God clearly. Jesus did a lot of work during His time here, healing the blind so they would be able to see (Mark 8:22, 10:46). And I used to wonder why He seemed to have switched gears so dramatically in our own time. Then He made me see. And it all began to make sense. We can be blind in more than one way, and we can see in more than one way. And usually, all the ways we want miracles are just that—what we want. Jesus is always about His Father’s work; and He is still healing the blind, the sick, the deaf, the mute, the broken, the crippled—healing them in the deepest ways.

And there are ways to behold, to see, just as clearly in your every day, not just with so-called visions. To see God’s provision in the breath in your lungs, His care in the blood in your veins, His pleasure in every laugh, His voice in everything that is Beautiful.

Lord, I am thankful that you want me to know you, and to behold you, and to see more clearly your beauty in all its splendor and glory. Amen.