** For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. ** Ecclesiastes 1:18
Sometimes, it is just hard to know what we know. It is hard to see so many reject the Truth that is right in front of them. It is hard to see someone struggle with any one of many problems and be so blind to the Answer that will resolve or lessen their suffering.
But the problem is not a new one.
Adam and Eve missed the perfection of walking daily with their Creator and traded it for the taste of a little fruit.
The children of Israel ran in fear from the intimate relationship that Moses had with the great I Am. Seeing Moses’ transformation from being in His presence made them walk the other way. They didn’t want to really get that close to Him. They chose to stand afar off. Their fear was greater than their faith. Because Exodus 20 tells us that God lives in the thick darkness. The scary, uncharted darkness.
You know what I mean, the darkness of doubt, insecurity, lack of clarity, pain or confusion. The darkness of the unknown, the misunderstood. None of us want to live there! We want answers. We want assurance. We want fairy tales and happy endings.
But cancer wards and graveyards are full of those thick darkness seasons. Broken dreams and injustice and tragedy all shake our Hallmark storybook life.
We argue and plea and throw down demands for the easy life and disrespect a God who has sacrificed His own Self for our eternity. We command Him to yield to our will instead of following His commandments.
We want God to be our Sugar Daddy, our Lottery Ticket, and our Magic Wand.
And sometimes, He is those things. He blesses and abounds with mercy and generosity. He whisks us out of harm’s way.
Until He doesn’t. And suddenly, He is the bad guy. We are the noble, righteous and honorable. And He has betrayed us.
With time, we realize that life is not a bed of roses. It is not Disneyland. And God is not our Fairy Godmother. And God is not unjust. He has a plan and He reveals it to us in small increments.
We know He is merciful and gracious and slow to anger. But He is also Just and Holy. We want Him to always be the Nice Guy. But our self obsession demands that He also be our Chastiser.
The Psalmist tells us to ** Be still, and know that I am God…**. Peter tells us to ** … grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. ** Philippians tells us to ** … know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings…**
We need to be still….to stop running from place to place, and filling our schedules so full that we have no time to talk to Him, let alone listen for His answers.
We need to grow in grace….because being gracious is being like Jesus, always treating others with kindness and understanding.
And to know Him, is to walk where He walked, to feel what He felt, to see what He saw, to learn to be who He was on the earth, to hurt in ways similar to His pain.
To know Him…. Much knowledge…much sorrow…because He was the ** man of sorrows, acquainted with grief…**
We all want to know Him better. But to know Him, means to know more of what He knows. And that will bring grief, sorrow, and heartache. It is more than factual knowledge. It is heart knowledge. It is soul knowledge. It is knowledge that is gained in the darkness. In the tough times. In the worst of times. In the “I don’t know what to do times”.
Much knowledge. Much sorrow. A world without Disneyland fantasies. It’s our choice.
The Real God, or a Fairy Tale God.