Ponderings on Knowing God

“You deserved to be punished. But I will treat you in a way that will bring honor to my name, and you will know that I am the Lord God.” Ezekiel 20:44

We Christians refer to “knowing the Lord” quite often. It is sometimes used to discover is someone truly belongs to the club. “When did you come to know the Lord?” Sometimes it is a defense when someone threatens our faith. “I think I know the Lord too.” Other times it is a place saver for “keeping the rules”, “going to heaven”, or “and I’m not sure about you.”

It’s not that we speak this way only about God. It also has to do with the vagueness of the term “to know”. If we include the Scriptural euphemism that Adam “knew” his wife, Eve, then “knowing” someone can range from a mere acquaintance with someone’s name all the way to the most intimate relationship of a husband and wife. So, it is no surprise that to “know the Lord” could also have wide swings in meaning.

When I think about knowing the Lord, apart from my casual usage in Christian circles, I am actually taken aback by the implications. My first thought is that God would be knowable at all. In fact, most religions make much of the ineffable (inexpressible or indescribable) nature of God. He is so far beyond mere mortals that to even think of “knowing” Him is, well, unthinkable.

But the God of the Bible, and more specifically, the God who showed Himself to us in His Son Jesus Christ, is personal. He desires a relationship with His creation. Mankind is actually created to experience God on a personal basis. He demonstrates this by taking on our own humanity in Christ.

But I think we need to approach the idea of “knowing God” with a great deal of humility. I am actually a bit weary of the phrase. It gets tossed around much too casually, in my opinion. So “knowing God” is not much different that “being a Presbyterian” or “voting Republican.” But, once we remove casual conversation from the scene, we are certainly aware of the deep implications when we claim to actually know God.

Besides the greatness, the vastness of His being, we are also separated from knowing Him well because of the holiness of His character. In very simple terms; God is perfect, us…not so much. Left to ourselves we become like a classroom of junior high students when the instructor leaves for a few moments. Can anyone say, “spit wads, rubber bands and paper clips?”

That is where Israel is when God makes this statement in verse 44. They had known God. In fact, God had chosen them to glorify Him to all the other nations on earth. Their mission was to be a reflection of the greatness of God Himself to the rest of the world. But, like our disruptive students, they, like us, turned their back on God and misbehaved horribly when they thought He wasn’t watching.

But He was watching! One of my eighth grade teachers was a middle aged woman who most of my class thought was pretty boring. The more boring the class, the more tempted young adolescents are to liven it up a bit. So, one morning, moments before she entered the classroom, a couple of my classmates taped a centerfold from a men’s magazine behind the pulled down map at the front of the classroom. Everyone held their breath until she finally scrolled the map up so she could use the blackboard, to reveal, in all its glory, the gift hidden behind.

I have to say, it was probably the most disappointing prank I have ever been party to. She didn’t even blush! She took one slow look at the class, but not so long to make us feel she was staring us down, turned back to the blackboard and peeled off the tape, corner by corner, from the poster. She folded it along its creases and put it in her desk. She took her seat, hands folded on the desktop, and then stared for what we thought was going to be the rest of the class period. IN reality it was probably only 30 second. The she got up and, without a comment, continued our geography lesson.

What Israel ahd been doing to God was much worse than an adolescent prank! Yet God does not reject Israel. He is patient with them, He eventually turns them over to their sinful ways and they suffer dreadfully. In fact, Israel was overrun, year after year, by countries around her, finally becoming subject to Babylon.

“You deserved to be punished” (and so did my classmates…yes, I’m sorry to say, I was not part of the inner prank circle). But here is the beauty; God says, though they deserved to be punished, He would treat them better than they deserved and that would lead to them “knowing God”. If I keep this in mind, I will never be flippant when I talk about “knowing God” myself.

It is the privilege of all life to have a personal connection with God. To know that He has forgiven me of all my misdeeds because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross deepens my definition of know Him. We are not mere acquaintances, waving as we pass. We are not classmates or peers, bound by equal experience and liberty.

He is God; I am the creature. Not only that, but I have not lived up to my original “creature-ness”. I have lived far below the expectations of Him who created me. And yet, with that great gulf, He wants me to know Him. It is difficult enough to hone a close relationship with someone who, say, speaks a different language. Imagine, other than language, we are the same.

With God, we have not only language, but the fact that we are totally different in makeup to separate us. For me, that is cause to think deeply when I say that I “know God”. Indeed I do. And I want to laugh, to weep, to sing, to enjoy that fact. But, what I never, ever want to do, is to take that fact for granted.

Do I know the Lord? Yes, indeed, without a doubt, I do. And yet, I have so much more about Him I still do not know.