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Before my mother passed away we were going through old photographs, making notes about the people and events. As I scanned through them, I realized they revealed a side to my mother that I never knew! One picture showed her behind the wheel of a motorboat dressed in a bikini top and shorts; in another she wore jeans and was cooking over a fire in front of a tent! I then had a chance to hear about her high school trek from Missouri, through the southwest and into California with a friend. She talked about fun times at Fontbonne where she attended college. I had known my mother all my days, and still had so much to learn in those last months of her life.
The word know has many levels of depth. I knew my mother. But as time became more precious and childhood melted into maturity, I focused on truly knowing who she really was.
It is this depth of knowing that God desires we have with Him.
This year our Womenary blog focused on the revealed attributes of God. One by one each writer answered the question “What is so compelling about God?” by illustrating, defining, and illuminating different aspects of His character.
One thing is apparent---whether it be power or mercy, knowledge or presence, justice or love—each and every attribute can be started with the prefix “omni”. Placed before “potent” it means God possesses ALL power. With “science” at its end, it describes a God who has ALL knowledge, through all time.
Even with all His “omni-ness” God has no wish to stay distant and unapproachable. This incredibly compelling God desires us to know Him intimately. Even as He formed Adam in His image and breathed life into his lungs, God could see the problems of finite us communing with infinite Him. He knew that only He Himself could make a way for our relationship.
What is so compelling about God? He did just that!
He gave us a beautiful creation that reflects His majesty, exemplifies order and obedience, and gives glimpses of His glory that draw us to Him! Watch a flock of birds moving in synch; schools of fish ebbing and flowing with each other in rhythm; herding animals instinctively rushing and slowing, grazing and moving together in a perfect union of fellowship. God is showing us, all over His creation, what he desires for us: to live and move and have our being with, and in, and through Him.1
But God did not stop there. Beyond this general revelation of His almighty glory, He inspired early followers to write His story—to tell themselves and all who come after, about the magnificent and matchless triune God. In Scripture God beckons us to turn to Him, know Him, trust Him, hold fast to Him through every up and every down.2 I have come to believe that the only thing that matters is an ever-increasing knowledge of our triune God: Father as LORD, Jesus Christ as Savior, and the Holy Spirit as Sustainer.
Why should anyone strive to learn more about God, and then submit to obedience, all in a pursuit for satisfaction in life?
Womenary Professor Eric Barton once said that the feeling in heaven will be like this experience: After a hard day’s work in the hot sun, you gulp an ice-cold drink. Imagine it—the feeling of deep desire meeting intense satisfaction. That is an inkling of what it will feel like to be WITH God, in His presence—deep desire fulfilled with penultimate satisfaction.
A glimmer of this future occurrence is available in the here and now. By grace we experience heaven on earth to the degree that we press into Him through his Word, made alive in Jesus Christ.
Why is God compelling? A Daily Article from Jim Denison reported this:
"The New York Times recently published a letter to the editor from a
political science professor at Kent State University who claimed that
Americans are “becoming less religious because there is zero evidence
to support any of the central claims religious institutions make about God
and the supernatural.”
Yet, “I”am evidence that God is compelling—I, Me, You.
We, as God’s chosen people, are what angels seek to look upon.3 God is unsearchable, but He provides His Spirit who can search the depths of God and reveal Him to us.4
God met me at a time when I was a do-good student of 16. I obeyed my mother (mostly!), went to Mass every week, attended CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), and said confession to get communion. But during that year at my Confirmation retreat I encountered Christ for the first time. We were going through an activity of Confession. Each with her own candle, we were to write down our sins and then fold and burn that paper. I felt keenly that it wasn’t the pitiful fire on my pittance of a confession that cleansed me. It was Jesus!
Me, you, we probably don’t look like wretched sinners. That wouldn’t be how family and friends describe us. But in that moment, in front of my little candle, I knew my wretchedness that stretched back to the Fall. In a flash the Spirit convicted me and made room for the Savior. I was made clean and ready to live in real relationship with God. My discipleship took a long and winding road, but God never left me alone.
I believe that a deepening awareness of the full character of God enables us to live by the full counsel of God.
It is only then that His will becomes louder than all the influences around me. Our ever-increasing knowledge of God can only come to us by the ways God has planned—specifically, by His Word. If we have the idea Scripture was written so that we could learn more about ourselves, we have gotten it wrong. God inspired Scripture to be written so that we could learn HIS heart, so that we could press into the depths of His heart for us. A byproduct of learning God’s heart is learning about ourselves—the created seeing themselves through the Creator’s eyes. What makes God so compelling? His undying, unbounded, relentless LOVE for us.
What else makes God so compelling? Truth! In possessing all truth, God is the objective and unfailing source of truth. How do you make a straight line? How do you form an angle or create a shape? How do I know I’m going in the right direction? In anything we do we must have a point of reference: a compass, a straight edge, a template. God, when creating and forming us, did not. He was the originator. What gives life meaning, direction, and purpose is to make God our point of reference—an eternal, unmovable, unchangeable, and faithful point of reference.
As we contemplate, discover, and ever move closer to this Creator, by the sacrifice of our Savior and the leading of the Holy Spirit, there is a fullness of joy that cannot be contained! The only way to respond to the full nature of our incredible, infinite God is answered in the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
“What is the chief end of man?
Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”
I pray that none of us miss the opportunity to know God intimately and live within that enjoyment forever!
END NOTES:
1. Acts 17:28; Job 12:10
2. Deuteronomy 30
3. 1 Peter 1:12; 2:9
4. 1 Corinthians 2:10-12
Elizabeth Murphy
Elizabeth Murphy has been following Christ since she was 17. Although this road has not always been straight, she has seen God’s hand in every detour. Elizabeth is blessed with and by her husband of 30 years, John, and 2 grown daughters. As an educator, she has been able to feed her insatiable desire to learn every day and share learning with others. Elizabeth became a student of Womenary in 2016. From the Bible to theology to cozy mysteries, Elizabeth is always absorbed in reading. This still leaves time for enjoying travel with her husband, walking, old movies, and time with extended family and friends. Elizabeth loves to walk alongside fellow Christ-chasers—learning and laughing through life.
