Hands-on Knowledge

“If you love me, you will obey my commands. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – John 8:31b-32

When I was in college, I had a chemistry class. The chapter happened to be on chemical reactions and there was the formula for touch explosive there, along with information about the chemical reaction that caused the explosion. I called my brother, who was an avid fan of explosives and said,

“Dude, I know how to make touch explosive”.

His response? “It’s easier in deer hunting season.”

“Huh?” I thought… “What does he mean by that?”

He went on, “Yeah, the hardest to get chemical is then at Walmart, because people use it to cover their scent when hunting. Oh, and don’t make too much of it at one time, otherwise it can set itself off on the toaster oven and scare your roommate half to death.”

Who really knew touch explosive? Sure, I had read about it in a textbook and 100% of what I learned was factual, but I didn’t really understand it. I didn’t have the experience my brother had. I think that’s like a lot of believers today. There’s an understanding of God and a deep understanding of scripture, but nothing replaces that experiential practice of living out the word of God.

We want to know the truth before we act. We want God to convince us that what He’s told us to do is right, but Jesus said it doesn’t work like that… It’s only after you obey that you’ll understand. When you read a scripture, are you looking for more head knowledge? Are you looking for scriptures that say what you already believe? Or are you looking for answers for how to live? 

When you read about Abraham being told to sacrifice Isaac, are you glad He hasn’t asked you to do that, or do you search yourself for the things he is asking you to give up? The real power of the Gospel isn’t found in the words, but in the application and the obedience. We can say we know Christ like I thought when I read that formula in a textbook, or we can really get to know him, daily, with all of the reality and pain that entails.

My health has been deteriorating over the past couple weeks and I realized that my workload was the #1 thing I could do to fix it. There was really no way around the fact that I was doing too much stuff. The past two weeks, I have spent quite a bit of time telling people no. I have called to cancel a couple key contracts, including the one that was keeping our family financially afloat. It was good money but the stress and always-on hours inevitably occurred during my quiet time or on vacation. Carla has complained that many vacations had been ruined by it, and I struggled to delegate it. A phone call could be in multiple languages from multiple countries about anything from networking to system analysis to a crashed server, and unlike our website business, it was 100% on my shoulders. I knew it was bad when she said she would support me cutting the contract even if it meant moving into a smaller house or getting by without a personal car, but thank God for that kind of support.

I am again in a place where I need faith, again in a place where I am waiting for the Lord to break through. But instead of dreading that place, I think we should all greatly desire it. After all, when things are going well, I end up spending less time with God, and my prayers aren’t as fervent!

 

The Beginning

Wow - we have $100 too much - while this is probably a strange sentiment in most cases, it must have seemed particularly out of place when I thought it. Carla and I were hours from boarding our plane to South Africa, where we would cross the border to Mozambique and spend the next 9 months. We had no visas, no contacts in Mozambique, and just the $100 in our account for 9 months of travel, food, lodging, and school fees. But that was $100 more than we needed that day so I was surprised. For 10 years we have been following God on a radical journey of guidance, provision, and generosity, sometimes daily learning how big He really is.

 

What would most people call this kind of life? Reckless? Foolish? Often I hear faith and wisdom being at the opposite ends of a spectrum - that you can live by one or by the other. However, I see faith as making wise choices by a different set of rules. After all, if we are God’s children and He loves us, doesn’t it seem foolish to worry

 

For ten years, we have followed God the best we knew how, not asking for money and seeing God provide again and again. He has been faithful with Carla and I, then with a family, now with an organization.

Limits to Self-actualization

 

Being in a place where everyone is on a spiritual journey has got me thinking about a lot of things. I don’t want to discourage anything if it IS God, but I want to talk about the limits I’ve experienced to finding truth internally…

My own personal salvation experience. I went on a 5 day fast to find truth - didn’t go to class, just read about Islam, Hinduism, Creationism etc… and on the 4th day I woke up knowing Jesus was Lord. That bothered me so much. Here I was trying to intellectually prove my faith, and I wanted to come out of that time knowing the truth by the strength of my own intellect. But it didn’t happen that way. I didn’t know why I knew, and I didn’t see any proof that was truly the right way to go until after I had been following Christ for almost a year.

I was so bothered when I couldn’t tell people why I believed. And at some level I was bothered because the truth seemed so vanilla… Everyone believes this stuff, so what was special about it? However where I really saw difference was in the action. Yes everyone believes it but few people act on scripture. Few people take the Bible and go look in it for how they should act or what they should do. And therein lies the power.

I have been epically wrong about who I am. Dating sites are a great idea. There’s just one problem… When asked what people want in a future spouse and then polled after they get married, their results are extremely different. It turns out most of us really have no clue what we want in a life partner until it comes along.

I can say the same thing for who I am. I’ve known some things about who I am but have been horribly wrong about others. I thought I was a technical person - you give me a project, I’ll get it done fast and I’ll get it done well. I thought I was a programmer. I thought I was a specialist.I was really frustrated at God when I got kicked out of Peniel - suddenly I had to lead an organization instead of just take orders. That wasn’t me - I hated it.

Or was it? I had never seen myself as a leader, even though everyone around me had. However, the saving grace was that I wasn’t making decisions based on who I was but based on what God said. So I ended up in the right place even when I was completely wrong about who God made me to be.

Identity is in Relationships. This should be a no-brainer but it isn’t… Our most key identities in life are in our relationships… Brother, husband, father, leader, friend, colleague. So much of who we are is actually tied to the people in our lives and our relationships to them. If that is the case, how can we really discover who we are just by looking inside?

Jesus says purpose comes when you lose your life. When you put others first, then you find out why you were created. This is super provable… Everyone else is telling you to do what feels good, treat yourself, live for the moment etc. Jesus says to do the opposite - die to yourself and you’ll find life. Do one or the other for a year then see how you feel afterwards!