Do not worry about anything, but in everything, but prayer with thanksgiving, bring your requests to God.
And God’s peace, which is far beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus.
And so, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
And the God who gives us peace will be with you. Philippians 4:6 - 9
When Jesus came to Israel and performed miracles people were amazed by what He did.
But most did not get to know Him or understand His love and care for them.
I remember 30 odd years ago reading Ps 103:7 He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel… For some reason the verse just grabbed me, what does that mean? I guessed part of the answer, that the Lords acts were the miracles that the people of Israel saw.
But what were His ways that He made known to Moses? I knew through reading scripture that Moses met God face to face. I accepted that this was not literally face to face, but I thought it meant that there was some sort of an intimate relationship going on between them. Anyway after some searching I found this prayer of Moses’ in Ex 33:13 ‘Now, show me Your ways that I may know You’
Oh I thought, yes that’s what I want, I want to know Him, yes that’s my desire, yes. And so I identified with Moses in that prayer, show me Your ways Lord that I may know You. I prayed I want to know You, by the way what are your ways? I felt led to search the scriptures for an answer.
These are what I found in the different parts of my bible. All the ways of the LORD are loving, faithful, loyal, steadfast, genuine, sincere, pure, righteous, holy, unchanging and eternal. It dawned on me that what I was reading was a list of the Lords characteristics and it was these characteristics that the Lord must have revealed to Moses. And so I said to the Lord show me your ways that I might know you.
I did realise that it took the Lord nearly nigh on forty years to answer Moses prayer. The Lord slowly but surely revealed more and more of Himself to Moses through experience. Through life’s experiences God revealed different aspects of Himself.
Over the years He has gradually revealed these characteristics of Himself in different ways through my life’s experiences, so slowly I’ve come to know Him more.
Relationships slowly grow, developing through doing things together and spending time in each others company. It took many years for Moses to know the Lord and it takes us time as well as we go through life. Scripture tells us that the Lord spoke to Moses as a friend, it took time to build up that friendship, their relationship had a familiarity about it.
In my previous church background they quite wrongly taught me that if I sinned it would separate me for God. There was a fear element in their teaching, familiarity wasn’t even on the menu. Instead of trusting that the Lord wanted to know me as I was, I spent a lot of time trying to change myself, there was no need. The fear of God or a friend of God are two concepts that are poles apart.
Sins didn’t and don’t separate us, that’s just not true. If we are always trying to turn ourselves into something we aren’t, it doesn’t help us have close relationships. And it gets in the way of being close to God. I was taught a lot about things that we must give up to become like Christ, but Jesus gave everything up to become like us. He came down to our level so that we can relate to him, exactly at our level.
Each one of us are unique individuals with the diversity that God intended all along. When we have a heartfelt desire to know Him more, He helps us to learn gradually how to trust and rely on Him.
He enables us to grow into a person who knows the Lord, has a deep sense of belonging to Him, a strong inner knowing that He always loves us no matter what, and an absolute trust in Him. And it takes time. When we have that real desire to know the Lord, we want to know Him so well that we can feel like we are speaking to Him face to face. Like two close friends talking or even at times like lovers closely speaking.
The wonderful thing is that as we go on with our lives with that desire, He will gradually show us more and more of what He is like. He will give us opportunities to trust Him, at first in the little things, and as we grow in Him in the bigger things in our lives. We don’t have to strive to get to know Him, all we do is respond to him when we hear him and dare to trust him when he guides us in a particular way.
To trust someone you have to know them first. Lord show us Your ways that we may know You. And as we know You more, enable our trust in You to grow.