i received a question from a student last week that i think is an amazingly practical question that will take you, me, us on a journey that will bring us to the door step of what all this "god" stuff means...
"how can you have faith in something you don't understand and know that this something is the RIGHT something?"
as our current series glimpses comes to an end tonight at the gathering we now know, at least in thought and can now verbalize that we know that we have this deep hunger and deep desire to pursue god because he is the only one that is lasting and that can bring lasting satisfaction to the emptiness we know all to often.
we now know this... but do we understand it!
can we understand it?
i love this question and i love the conversations that will come from the question...
i am interested in your thoughts...
please post your thoughts
Freddy
Wow, good insight from your student. Those are the questions that you love to hear, eh?!
I agree with you. It is totally and completely possible to know God because we experience an honest to goodness relationship with Him!
But can we understand him?
Doubtful, and that's where faith comes into play. Not understanding God, we put our faith in Him and by doing so we experience/know His goodness even more.
Instead of ever grasping an understanding of Him, we collect a deeper knowledge of Him.
That intimate knowledge is how we can be sure that this something is the right something.
Maybe.
Ok. I am having a kind of menatl block because of the word "understand". Now, this is confusing because I can't find the words to even start to begin HOW to understand someone that is totally soverign and Holy and not of this world. I can't explain something that is 4-D in 3-D terms. So, I researched and actually found the definition of "understand" :
To learn indirectly, as by hearsay
To accept (something) as an agreed fact
So here I am thinking, should we try to "understand" God, our Holy and Soverign Father that we can't explain by worldly standards, OR should we accept the fact that Gos is, and learn HOW to "understand" him by learning about him.
Another thing(and im thinking out loud) should WE try to understand him through what WE know, or should we try to understand him through what JESUS knows and how JESUS understands him.
Much Love,
Ryan Weiss
understanding? faith?
yes, you can have faith w/o complete understanding. how and why do i say this?
because i cant even begin to comprehend or understand God, yet i have complete faith in him and what he is doing. Its second nature im glad to say. tho sometimes harder then others. i still push him to go my way when i SHOULD know perfectly well by now that hes got better plans for me.
well as a certain someone i know likes to say "why would i want to worship a God i can understand? that would be too small!"
i think if we have the faith to keep following and persuing him to the very ends of the earth, thats when we will begin to truly understand him!
im talkin out loud too, and im glad what God is revealing to me right now!
of course, God will always be surrounded by these mysteries, so lets plunge headfirst into them to find the answers.
"mystery is good, it keeps people searching [for God]"
im delighted we cant understand! it gives us all this incentive and desire to discover him in all his glorious mystery!
-Pepper
p.s. ryan weiss, obviously you are on the internet, now go look at your myspace page to see the link for that H.I.!
thank you, that is all.
Hey Freddy,
You should check out some of my blogs and help me to work out the kinks.
God Bless,
Ryan Weiss
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=123729168
the blogs are in the upper left hand corner