Are you growing in your KNOWLEDGE of God?
What comes to mind when you hear that question?
Maybe you think, “Yes! I’m learning so much in God’s Word about who He is and what He’s done. I feel like I’m learning things about Him I’ve never known before.”
Or perhaps you respond, “I’m not sure I’m learning anything new about God that I didn’t already know. But I’m learning to know what I already knew in a deeper way. My relationships and circumstances are causing me to believe and rest more deeply in the things I already know about God. I may not be acquiring new information about God, but I’m experiencing a new intimacy with God.”
Both of these are ways we know God. The second kind of knowing God depends on the first, and the first cannot be fully enjoyed until the second happens. Knowing God is not less than knowing truths about Him, but knowing God is so much more. As Blaise Pascal said, “The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.”
One scholar described biblical knowledge of God this way: “Knowledge in the Old Testament connotes an intimate acquaintance with something. This is not so much knowledge ‘about,’ in the sense of an objective, mental apprehension. Rather, a personal relationship is implied.”
I’m thankful to be experiencing both kinds of knowledge of God these days. I have the joy of studying God’s Word daily, learning more about Him, growing in truth knowledge. I’ll never get to the bottom of the fathomless depths of truth about Him that He’s revealed in the Bible.
But most of my knowing God lately has been the second kind, trust knowledge, “intimate acquaintance” with the God I know so much truth about already. Through the challenges of work, family, friendship, suffering . . . through the exposure of my own resistance to trust what I know to be true about Him . . . God is giving me space to wrestle with Him as He is, not as I wish He would be. That’s the kind of growth in the knowledge of God I’m experiencing these days. I’m so, so glad I’m getting to know Him. I want more.
What about you? In what ways are you growing in your knowledge of God lately? What has He been teaching you about Himself in His Word (truth knowledge)? How has God been growing your personal, relational knowledge of Him lately (trust knowledge)?
Try this: Next time you meet with a friend to talk, describe these 2 ways to know God (truth knowledge and trust knowledge) and ask them how they’ve been growing to know God lately. Let that start a rich conversation that gets below the surface.
The Cruciform Life 