I attended a week of pizza school. I can spread pizza sauce like nobody’s business. I honestly think my children believe graduating this course is one of my life’s most significant achievements, and who knows, it does come in handy. To these children of mine, I wonder if they full-on believe it’s my greatest quality because the pizza making is tangible.
When I think of how my kids view my pizza-making skills, it makes me wonder what part of our relationship with God we think of as the “main thing,” when actually we cling to it only because it is the most tangible. When we think of our relationship with God, the first thing that may come to mind for many of us is Heaven. I want a relationship with God because I would rather go there than the alternative, so we try to repeat over and over in our heads “when God asks me why He should let me into His heaven…respond Jesus…Jesus, don’t forget and say something like ‘I have been nice and end up in the bad place.” (These are honest conversations I used to have with myself!) I wonder if we cling to that picture because it is tangible, and seek just enough of Jesus to make us right with God and think that’s the end of the story.
Believe the tangible: Jesus in the manger, Jesus on the cross, Heaven…but I wonder what more you could know of God if you told Him you wanted to know more of Him. If you asked Him to show you more of Himself and asked Him to teach you more of what this life is all about? I can honestly say that God is so much more to me than I could have ever expected, but just like any relationship, it was built little by little over time.
A relationship with God can be compelling, but it took me ten years of pursuit to get there. It may not take you as long. Maybe it’s because I didn’t ask…but there is so much more to a relationship with God than duty, more than what He can do for you and you must do for Him. Seek to know more of Him than you did yesterday.
I want to know more of God than what is going to come in handy. I don’t want to make assumptions that what I knew of God in my child’s-eye is all there is. I want to know not just about Him, but I want to know Him. Ask, my friends, let’s ask to know Him more fully. I believe that is a prayer God would want to answer. Let’s know more of Him today than what we did yesterday and more tomorrow and more next year.
Seek to know more of God than what you have been told about Him. Seek to know all of Him. Someday my kids may discover that I have an even greater skill than pizza making. Maybe not, but I do hope they look deeper. There may be more of me for them to know. There may be more for us to know of God as well; don’t stop at pizza sauce; don’t stop at the tangible. I want to be known by these kids of mine, and my God wants to be known by you.
This is the free life. This is the life I never knew I always wanted.
