God is KNOWABLE
Everyone seems knowable these days, with so much information shared on the internet.
God is knowable. Even though it is hard to comprehend and understand his power and him being everywhere all at the same time, we really can get to know him and have a close relationship with him, even though he is invisible and he is always right.
Have you ever read CS Lewis’s Narnia series? The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe? The Lion was written to represent God, and I love the representation so much. CS Lewis illustrates how God (through the lion, Aslan) can be kind, loving, right, omnipotent, omnipresent AND knowable all at the same time.
What do you think?
Some things you can get to know and other things you can’t really know.
Have you ever played “Secret Sound” on the radio?
Some sounds you know and other sounds you just can’t work out and they are hard to know and those ones are the ones that are always chosen as the secret sound and hundreds of people call up to guess the sound but can’t.
Do you know these sounds?
Elephant
Bells
Pen writing
Footsteps
Glass cracking
Some of these you would have known, others might have been a bit tricky.
The thing with God, is that we can get to know him. He doesn’t hide himself from us.
But when I say God is knowable, I don’t just mean we can know all the facts ABOUT him. I mean we can know him, and have a relationship with him.
You might know all about golden retrievers, but you don't know my golden retriever, Tilly.
Imagine going to a restaurant and reading all about the menu but never actually ordering the food and experiencing what it tastes like. That is a bit like knowing about God compared with really knowing God.
Bible Passage: Jeremiah 9:23-24
“This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight, declares the Lord.”
Story Time!
My son Ted started school in kindergarten. He came home talking about his friends. They liked soccer. He didn’t know their names.
He came home each day still not knowing their names but slowly learned more and more about them.
They are twins, their names, he eventually found out, were James and Anthony.
They were fun.
As he got to know them over time, he discovered more and more things about them. He discovered that they weren’t kind, they were selfish, and they were happy to leave you out of games.
He quickly found some other people to hang out with and started the process of getting to know them. He learnt their names, Alex and Zach. He learnt that they liked nerf wars and lego and they were fun to hang out with too. He learnt that they were quieter and eventually discovered that they too were selfish and happy to leave you out.
He found some new friends and began the process all over again.
Finally he found some friends who were fun, interested in boating and Minecraft, and after a while, he got to know that these boys were loyal. They were kind and they always included each other in games.
The main ways that God shows himself to us is :
Through the Bible. There are both stories of what God did, and descriptions of what God is like
Through Jesus and all of the stories we can read about
Through his creation, Romans 1:20 says, “God’s eternal power and character cannot be seen. But from the beginning of creation, God has shown what these are like by all he has made.”
Question Time!
What things do you do to get to know someone who you don’t know yet?
How do you go about getting to know God better?
