Posts Tagged: on the outside looking in

“A HEART TO KNOW GOD”

On April 20, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

A friend of mine sent me an e mail to me yesterday, which I share with his permission:

“I stumbled on the verse this morning that I mentioned in my email. It’s in Jeremiah – right after the fall of Jerusalem to the siege by Nebuchadnezzar – a horrendous takeover. God showed Jeremiah a basket of good and bad figs.  

 Jer. 24: 4 – 6 Then the word of the Lord came to me: “This what the Lord, the God of Israel says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. My eyes will watch over them for their good and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. … they will return to me with all their heart. ‘ “

I picked up on this as a fervent praise to God – even though this was spoken about the Jewish exiles. A praise to God that he has given me (us) a heart that knows Him. That thought captivates – there is nothing more in life that a man could hope for than for God to give us a heart that knows Him – and He has chosen to let me know him. 

The alternative is equally overwhelming: that one would have no part in Him. It’s more than any man can bear – except through wickedness, delusion, and deceit of the heart.”

 

I would add only two things to my friend’s good insights.  First, we are all exiles in a sense.  The Bible has several hints that believers are, in a sense, all foreigners—strangers in a strange land (Ps. 38:13; Heb. 11:13; 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:11).  And, of course, no one—whether she is a believer or not—feels like she really fits in most of the time.  Outsiders looking in, that is what we feel like (and perhaps are) most of the time.

The monks at Gethsemani sing before they go to bed of their own feeling of exile.  In one of their closing songs, they sing of being “poor banished children of Eve.”  It is not only monks who are poor banished children of Eve; they are, perhaps, just some of those who realize this more intensely, and feel it more keenly.

The second comment I would add to my friend’s good words is that, while it is quite true that God gives us a heart to know him, it is also true that we need to work on our own hearts.  We must guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23).  We are to cleanse our hearts (Jeremiah 4:14).  We find God when we seek him with all our heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

There is a twelve-step saying that goes something like this: “We can’t without God.  God won’t without us.”  Yes!

However, my friend has correctly—and eloquently—spoken of the best beginning point for most of us.  Those who begin with human effort in their quest to find the God (who is never far from any of us) quickly discover the limits of such human efforts.  Those who begin with God’s gift of a new heart are on much solider ground.  God is pure love, pure goodness, pure gift.  Everything we do is a response to what God has already done.

I believe that it was Saint Bernard who used to tell his monks, “God is always awake before you are.”  Whoever said it, he/she was right!

 

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