On a British autumn day in 1969, my husband announced at dinner, “Kids, we’re going to America!” Our three children’s eyes widened. David glanced nervously at his sister, who was staring into her cup.
“I know about America,” David offered. “We did it in school this year.”
It was true, David did know about America. He had been made aware of its existence through education. But awareness wasn’t “knowing.” Information wasn’t knowing America. The more we gained information, the more we got excited. But even our warm “feelings” were not a true “knowing.”
Knowing God, like knowing America, is much more than awareness, information, or emotions. “Knowing” is “being there.” Too many of us never get beyond a textbook acquaintance with God. We remain across the sea, content to base our knowledge on what others describe. We live on our comfortable islands, never exploring the vast continent, full of wonders and dangers, that waits to receive us.
WHAT KEEPS US FROM EXPERIENCING GOD?
1. The Impediment of Ignorance
We often don’t actively seek deeper intimacy with God because we don’t know it is possible.
The girl who led me to Christ also discipled me. I have since learned that many believers never had a mentor to holiness. We all need teachers, and guessing doesn’t do it. We know that we should read the Bible, but where do we begin, when do we do it, and how do we rightly interpret and apply what we read? Are there guidelines, rules, skills? The answer, of course, is yes, but guidelines need a guide, and rules and skills need to be taught. Sometimes we need to take the initiative and ask a wise and experienced believer to help us.
We can also learn from reading about giants of the faith. As a young believer, I inhaled biographies of men and women who knew, loved, and served the Lord, and were evangelistic in their zeal to make Him known. These giants of the faith became mentors. The stories of men and women God has used greatly can let us into their secrets and enable us to make great progress toward maturity.
2. The Bane of Business
Some of us are busy doing important things, and some are just busy being busy! How busy is too busy? God will tell me. I need to learn the art of leaving things undone.
Jesus knew how to do that. One day He said to His Heavenly Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do,” and went home to heaven at the age of 33 (John 17:4). Think about all the lepers He left behind, all the hungry, maimed, blind, and demon-possessed who stayed hungry, maimed, blind, and demon-possessed because He finished the work God gave Him to do! You ask, “How could He have finished the work that needed to be done?” It doesn’t say He finished the work that needed to be done—it says that He finished the work that God had for Him to do. That’s why it’s important to learn the secret of pleasing God! “I always do what pleases him,” Jesus said (John 8:29b).
3. The Problem of Pettiness
Pettiness bothers us with whether we are too hot or too cold as we sit in a cushy church sanctuary, whether someone took our spot in the church parking lot, or whether anyone noticed or acknowledged our latest contribution. Pettiness devours our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
One day Jesus listened to His disciples arguing about lunch. “Open your eyes,” He advised them. “Look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35b). If we have our eyes fixed on the loaf of bread in our hands, we’ll never see the One who grew the grain in the first place. In order that the multitudes be fed, we may find ourselves arguing which bread is best—whole wheat or white! May larger hungers and the needs of a spiritually starved world lift us above the pettiness that so easily besets us.
4. The Lure of Laziness
Laziness is a willful decision not to go to good extremes. Our excuse for not being “spiritually disciplined” is that we don’t want to be called weird. We need to be balanced, laziness advises. Do a bit of this and a little bit of the other.
Laziness yawns when he hears a talk on laziness. He tunes out easily, not listening to the application. He’s too lazy to concentrate on anything spiritually stretching, preferring drama to doctrine and music to mastering the Scriptures. He wants to be entertained, not educated. If electives are offered at church, he carefully selects ones titled “How to Pray Effectively in Five Minutes Flat,” and always arranges to work late during missions festival. It’s amazing how hard laziness will work to be lazy!
5. The Fear of the Cost
Jesus called Peter to follow him. Peter “knew” Christ. Andrew had introduced him to the Messiah, and Peter had been hanging around Jesus in his spare time. But today was different—this call was to leave everything and follow Jesus.
For Peter and his family, it meant leaving his business, his security, his home, his trade, his independence. Peter must have feared the cost. But, because he had experienced the power of Christ (see Luke 5:6), he fell at the Lord’s feet. True, he didn’t say, “Take me with you,” but rather, “go away from me” (Luke 5:8). But his heart was captured, and his mind convinced that Jesus was Lord. When he heard the Lord’s words, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men” (Luke 5:10b), he beached his boat and began a “knowing” God experience that he never could have had without a price.
There is a cost to knowing God. There must be. Because the more you know, the more you long for others to know too. That longing could well take you not only across the street, but even around the world!
6. Slaying the Sinful Self
What, in the end, can keep me from coming closer to God? I can! It is ultimately the sinful self—the flesh—that I have been describing. My fallen nature knows how to be hostile to God without anyone telling me how. I don’t want to be like Jesus; I want to be like me. That’s the essence of the flesh. Self is all for getting, not giving; living, not dying; controlling, not releasing.
So, whether it’s ignorance, busyness, pettiness, laziness, or the cost, it’s our innate selfishness that needs to be hammered to the cross of Christ moment by moment. As in Christ all died, so in Him will all be made alive. There it is! I can reckon myself dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God. That’s a mindset that begins in my head, captures my heart, and finally sets my feet dancing with delight. I find that dying to self is not such a dreadful idea after all, for such a death releases me unto the power and the pleasure of His daily presence and delivers me from me.
