There is something beautiful about how God makes Himself known to people. His essence, his nature is beautiful beyond compare. There should be a reverence for Him unmatched to anything else. His grace, His mercy is complimented by His justice and His goodness. Even “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans :20 New International Version, ©2011). God’s glory is echoed through the things that He’s created, and gives awe and wonder to the thought of who He is.
To know about God is one thing, but to know and to be known by God is something entirely different. In my last entry I wrote about how truly knowing God – being known by God – is the only way to have true Life. In my heart I knew this, but in the way my life reflected this truth was to an extent lackadaisical. I’d find myself putting off reading my Bible, quickening prayer time because of “stuff I had to do” that at times seemed more important, and putting anything about God at the very bottom of my to-do list. I remember calling one of my good friends and telling her that this issue, making an effort to truly know God, was one of the biggest I struggled with. I told her how I then started incorporating a new way of spending time with God by making time in my day to journal while reading His word. But sadly I only kept this on a couple of days, and in those day I wasn’t really fully engaged in what I was doing—letting my mind wonder to different thoughts and duties I had to do. In my walk to truly know God I was half-hearted and lukewarm.
Then, last week I had a dream- a literal dream that woke me up in the middle of the night. In this dream I was in a building that had many floors and with me was a girl of my age but whom I didn’t know. In the building there was a unanimous sense that danger would be eminent. Why I wasn’t sure. Then in the dream my mom had the duty of putting detonators on the different floors of the building. It wasn’t a shock that my mom was the one planting these detonators- it was just something she had to do and when she was done she left. It was then up to the girl with me and myself to, in a specific order, turn off these bombs before they exploded within a short time limit. My mom had planted these bombs on the floors in a random order and the girl and I wondered why she didn’t make it easier for us to select the correct bombs to turn off and thus we were very afraid and worried. Then my older brother, companied with my little baby brother, came in the scene to help the girl and I turn off these bombs. My brother knew exactly what to do. He went about the different floors deprogramming the right bombs without any problem. Then it came time for me to go to my own floor-there my room from my house was located – to stop my own designated bomb, but this time my older brother could not come with me. I had to do it myself. At this time there was about two minutes and a few seconds left on the clock, and the elevators in the building were running really slow. My older brother told me what to do-which floor to go on and what number on the bomb to press and thus the girl and I were off to the elevator.
On the elevator the girl with me was trembling because she was so afraid. Although I appeared more calm that the girl I was just as scared. I believe we were headed to the fourth flour and there I would have to turn off my designated bomb. When we got out of the elevator ant to our own floor the girl with me, out of fear, quickly pressed a button on her detonator, which I think was a number three. Then reacting to her fear and impulse I also quickly pressed her button. She king of shoved me away then quickly without thinking I pressed one of the buttons on my detonator, which I believe was also a three. At this time I couldn’t remember exactly what my brother had told me-whether the right button was three or four. Unlike him I didn’t know how to turn off these bombs like the back of my hand. When the buttons were pressed one had to hold them down. And as I was holding down my button I had this shattering felling that I had hopelessly pressed the wrong button and a gripping fear came over me. With about twenty something seconds left on the clock I woke up.
I woke up from this dream scared and afraid. Why was I scared? “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7 New King James Version). At this time I sat up straight in by bed and wondered why God allowed me to have this dream. I prayed and asked God to show me what this dream could possibly mean as I sat anxious thinking, and meditating. What God revealed was such an amazing and eye opening revelation.
It didn’t take long — maybe a couple minutes — before my heart started to feel convicted of a particular issue — my lazy attempts to know Him. Then I began to understand the dream. In the dream, my brother knew, like the back of his hand, exactly how to turn off those bombs. There was no doubt in his mind, and he knew exactly what to do and where to go. When it came time for me to turn off my bomb I couldn’t remember the instructions that were given to me. I was unsure of the right button to press. Unlike my brother I didn’t know how to turn off those bombs. My not knowing how to turn off those bombs illustrated my lazy attempts at truly knowing God. My fear, although hidden visually, illustrated the inevitable hopelessness of everyone else who does not know God – whether they are able to portray or mask on a righteous persona or not. My selection of the wrong button illustrated that without truly knowing God there was no hope of choosing Life with Him. While I was thinking of these things I also started thinking of things in my life that I devoted more time and attention to than to the Creator of the universe. Three things in particular came to mind: school, myself and my elevation of other people in particular– putting them on a high pedestal. These things became idols because I showed more concern to those things than I did to God. In Exodus 20:4-6 (New International Version, ©2011) God’s word says, “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…” But that was exactly what I was doing with those particular issues.
After coming to this realization I opened my Bible that was on my bed and scrolled to index to look for verses that highlighted the theme of knowing God. I then came to the second chapter in Hosea. In the book of Hoses God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute to illustrate to the people of Israel that they are like prostitutes — running and chasing after idols and false assurances — yet God still loved them. In the second chapter, God describes that Israel has forgotten her true Husband and has run to alternative places and gods to worship and to attribute for their prosperity, forgetting that it was God who blessed them. The beautiful part of this chapter was toward the end when God explained that even though Israel has become like prostitutes he still loves them. In verses 19 and 20 it reads, “I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in lovingkindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the LORD.” God says that he will bring Israel, the lost bride, back to him to once again know him.
God, in His word and though the beautiful way He communicates, illustrated to me that although I was lacking in my attempts to know him, although I had made idols in my life that I worshiped more than Him, He still sought after me in love and mercy just so I could know Him. What an awesome revelation –that a perfect God would desire so much for me, an imperfect person, to know and to be known by Him.
