https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMyiuKFElG8
I had the privilege last week to attend a men’s Christian conference in Orlando, Florida featuring many of the best Christian speakers I have heard. One of the most impactful to me was Dr. Curt Thompson who so effectively explains from both a scientific and faith perspective the meaning of soul and body and how they interact. This also leads to explanations of how we sense or know God and each other both physically and spiritually.
In the video above, Curt breaks the surface of how knowing God and each other is both a spiritual and physical experience and each sphere of experience affects the other. Life is not just about ourselves, but how we perceive each other and also pursuing that which affects us but is unseen. We don’t see the wind, but we see its effects on the physical things around us like swaying trees. We can’t see the full essence of each other even in marriage or lifelong friendships, but we are affected by each other in relationship anyways. We cannot fully see the purpose of creation or nature and where its all going, but we can see the miraculous as it happens every day in the animal and plant kingdom and we also see people physically healed from supposedly fatal diseases or accidents that happen to us in the physical realm.
Perhaps this is the beginning outline of a book on such a huge subject, but let me summarize a few points for consideration and growth today about knowing and being known…
– It has been said “Who we are is the summary of all the people we have intimately known in this life”. Our experiences with others…our parents, family, friends, and even enemies…define what we learn and who we are. Those relationships can be positive or negative and all combine to define our lives and meaning. To many this is a huge handicap as we carry the baggage of our heredity of traits with us throughout life which aren’t necessarily positive. Some escape the confines of these previous experiences while I would venture to say most never do.
– In reaction to the conditions we grow up in, some of us escape or explore other ways of life than we were programmed with or we may draw very inward in reaction to the outward when we develop our sense of self and uniqueness. What we find when we look inward is usually vague or empty, so we pursue that space from our imaginations of self and strive to become unique and different. Some of us succeed growing into strong individuals while most of us never escape the limitations and haunts of what other people have told us we are or aren’t. What psychology labels being “self-actualized” tends to turn into a total escape into selfishness or simple life of pleasure and self adoration. This can very quickly become a prideful, false sense of who we are that covers up truth or makes us delusional and unrealistic.
– The extent that we can know others is the extent to which we know ourselves. If we are honest with ourselves, we can be honest about others. If we open ourselves up to others with our truth, others will often but not always follow suit. The purpose of life to me could be summarized in the challenge to know others as we know ourselves…and that knowing often only comes about by mutual honesty and being real with each other.
– This “being real” extends to both our soul and our physical being. “Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart”. We humans have the choice to be shallow and only deal with our and others physical properties…or we can take the dive into our souls and attempt to figure out a deeper meaning or purpose besides just eating and drinking well or making more money to be more “secure”.
Being real is more about questions than answers. It is more about what we DON’T know than what we know. If we are smug and proud about what we THINK we know and never question ourselves or others, it will be difficult to TRULY know ourselves. If we are surface and judgmental of others in our lives based on physical properties or appearances, we will probably miss a majority about who those others really are. Who we really are is like the wind. Most people only see the cause and effect of the wind but never even think of what causes the wind. Obviously wind can be pleasant on a hot summer day or destructive when it is out of control in a hurricane or storm.
It becomes even more challenging when we contemplate God and universal causality. We can observe thousands or maybe even millions of years of universal development, but we are very limited in knowing for sure what has caused what is. We have telescopes and microscopes and a level of understanding of nuclear fission, but we may never know or understand what ultimately causes the splitting of atoms. It is beyond our physical and limited reasoning, power, or experience. At some point we all trust in something real that we cannot see or prove…because we see the effect and label it to the best of our abilities.
This comes around to how we know and prove God even when we don’t physically see Him. We have a solid history of His cause and effect. He has acted and revealed Himself in time and space in ways that should not be denied. In what He has revealed He has demonstrated through many actions and experiences what cannot be explained in the natural. The supernatural is always there to observe IF we will look for it. If we are so caught up in our narcissistic tendencies to stay focused on ourselves, we will never see or grasp the power and reality of the God who created us and all there is. Many of the greatest minds and scientists I have read come to the point of acknowledging the limits of science to explain the miracles of what is. Faith is always required to get to the next step of knowing. If we just stand in place looking at a mirror of ourselves, we will never understand the reality of “otherness”…the wind if you will…that truly controls us whether we like it or not.
All things in life are about knowing and being known relationally. Even God is known in the form of a Trinity of beings…united yet distinct…who made everything that is. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are revealed to us through thousands of years of scriptures and experiences. The Holy Spirit is called the “mighty wind” that blows to and fro, revealing God’s nature and changing the pathways and souls of men and women. All things, even God Himself, are in relationship to separate beings. There is no such things as being an entity unto ourselves. All things and results in our lives are based on…relationship. Knowing and being known.
Based on these truths, I encourage all of us to be intentional in our pursuit and understanding of God and each other. If we never step out of “ourselves” to pursue knowledge and truth of each other…we will become like so many who are simply sepulchers of an empty soul not being in relationship with anything but our empty selves. We see the cause and effect of that decision everyday in the people and organizations of mankind around us. I pray that we will all pursue the knowledge of Him and all mankind…which IS after all our primary calling in life. To know and be known…by God and each other…is the greatest daily pursuit of real life, and that life being an eternal one.
Scriptural contexts:
Matthew 12:30-31
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
1 John 3:2
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like Him, because we will see Him as He is…”
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Christian faith in GodChristian relationshipsflesh and spiritknowing and being knownpersonal revelationrelationshipsrole of the Trinityself actualization
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Matthew 22:36–40
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
1 John 3:2
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like Him, because we will see Him as He is…”