How do you explain or process a relationship that needs to be experienced to be known? I went into this lecture with wild expectations of weeping and discovering a giant empty hole in my soul that needed to be filled. I wasnt disappointed but didnt get at all what I was expecting. My opinion of a perfect father figure has changed over the last few years and that in itself has been a journey let alone figuring out what I missed in not having a perfect father. So to sum it up I realised that to be a Son of the Father you need to be a Son of the Father. (capital ‘S’ isnt suggesting Jesus in this article but differentiating between my earthly father and my heavenly Father). A Son isnt merely a position that you were born into but a position received by grace. An orphan only fills the position of a son if he accepts his new identity, regardless of his legal position. This new received identity comes with an incredible inheritance! We often accept the legal position we receive but miss out on what the Fathers true desire is, Relationship. This new identities foundation is based on humility and the recognition you werent ever going to deserve your inheritance. Only after you realise this can you really start living as a Son. If you think of the movie” Titanic” you remember it not because you have a special fondness for a once beautiful ship but because you got wrapped up in a love story. Our story should be the same. Maybe not the sinking ship and everyone freezing to death part though… you get the idea though. This was a new outlook for me. I was always worried about my ship getting from one point to another without sinking. The funny thing is often the people that God uses have what looks like major life ship wrecks yet God cant seem to get enough of them! He delights in them, blesses them and insistently pursues a relationship with them. Only when you know who you are can you adequately fill the position in society that God has for you. This is my goal now, know myself better by getting to know God better. I encourage you to look into becoming a Son/daughter also, it just might change your life as well.
God speaks so listen
Technology is growing, this results in more solutions but these solutions cause more problems. What are we doing with these problems and their solutions? When we look at everything around us we look at things that were created to be below us as people. We cannot have a complete relationship with anything less than something equal to us. No matter what we discover or solve here on earth we will never be able to replace human relationship with something other than another human. God had the same problem. He was limited to what he could have a relationship with so out of an overflow of love God created something that could have a relationship with Him. We can have a relationship with God because He created us in His own image. Nothing else is in Gods image. Man is more reflective of God than anything else in creation. Gods original desire was perfect relationship between everything. The building blocks of that relationship consist of communication. When we communicate with God we prove our freedom, we are not puppets, we can listen and respond with free will. God lacks nothing but desires much, He desires that relationship above all else. One way of communicating is worship. If God wants a relationship and relationships involve communication and communication is a dialogue and not a monologue worship should be done with God not alone. My conclusion: God created us to have an intimate relationship with Him, so have one!
Do we search out Gods will or God?
I have lately been pondering the different ways of searching out God and His will. Two seemingly opposing ways are logically analysing what His will is and simply experiencing His guidance. If we decide that logical thinking is the opposite of experiential action and analytical thinking is the opposite of simple actions we can look at who God is and see how he prefers us to follow His directions. Lets look at two scenes in the Bible. Jesus at age 12 was logically analysing what was offered by the church teachers. Jesus completely changes His approach in His ministry and simply experiences the Fathers will. From illogically spitting in the mud for some blind guy to washing His disciples feet He was simply experiencing how His Father had taught Him to live. On the other end we have the Israelites in Egypt for 400 years before Moses introduced the Fathers power. They experienced lots of illogical stuff. Bloody water, rocks that spewed out water and manna were just a few yet they insisted on deviating from Gods will. Whats the difference? Jesus and the Israelites both had the same information, they both had the same God and both experienced that Gods miracles. Jesus logically analysed who God was so when it came time to follow Him He simply experienced what He knew. The Israelites simply experienced God but logically analogized who He was and because it didnt make sense to what they knew missed who He was. My conclusion and revelation: Its not bad to logically analyse who God is through the Bible but when it comes to knowing His will He wants us to simply experience His walk with us.
David Snader 