A Year Older: What Do I Know?

Last week we celebrated my birthday.  Seventy-five more candles have been added to my birthday cake since the time when there was only one candle—figuratively speaking, that is.  Otherwise, at my current age, we would have needed a burning permit.

Seriously, I am very thankful for my many blessings during more than three-quarters of a century of life-- the blessings of love in marriage, loving family and friends, opportunities for meaningful service to others, material sufficiency, and religious and political freedoms for which I owe the blood, sweat, and tears of many.  But there’s more.

Greater to me than any material and relational blessings is God’s gift of faith to believe in His provision of salvation and Eternal Life through Jesus Christ which I received, in 1972 (Ephesians 2: 8-9).  Since then, each spiritual blessing has only made more obvious to me “the goodness of God” (Romans 2: 4).  But strangely, my blessings and successes have tended to draw me away from dependence upon God.  It is through the trials that God teaches me to realize my need to rely upon His help.  This principle is affirmed by New Testament writers like James (James 1: 2-4) and Paul (Romans 5: 1-5).

This blog is the result of my personal “birthday reflections” on “things I know.”  It is also about who I’m hoping to know more clearly—especially, God and myself.  To all who choose to read further, I hope my ponderings will be helpful and seen as humbly expressed.  [Find my last years’ “Reflections at Age Seventy-five” by clicking HERE.]

Firm Foundation in a Changing Culture
Back to the lone candle on my first birthday cake: when I imagine myself as that lone candle, I can feel the increase in temperature with each added birthday candle.  Like the proverbial frog in a gradually warming pan, the change in temperature is hard to detect.  But, during the past decade, it seems that the culture is approaching the boiling stage.  Each day’s news suggests a new challenge to the moral foundation upon which America was founded.  The boiling water in the pan has become like angry waves pounding against the shoreline.

Although the waves of change have been eroding our moral and political foundation for years, the COVID pandemic has seemingly increased the rate of change in our culture.  During the past three years, we saw the erosion of our individual freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, and freedom to make individual health choices.  All of these changes we later learned were imposed while many were being denied access or persuaded to ignore reliable scientific reporting. 

At the same time, online teaching during the pandemic informed parents of the morally and historically inaccurate content to which their children were being exposed.  Now, as children struggle to regain their social and emotional footing from the lockdowns, they are more easily confused and influenced by media and peer pressures related to gender identity, distorted accounts of American history, and woke ideology.

I can only imagine how the current moral confusion would have affected me as a child.  Even as a mature adult, it is unsettling for me at times.  Yet, I am encouraged to remember that history records many traumatic periods.  The psalmist David wrote:

"For, behold, the wicked bend the bow,
They have set their arrow on the string

To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.

“If the foundations are destroyed,

What can the righteous do?”  (Psalm 11: 2-3)

Many in our world can relate to David’s response to the uncertain and fearful situations in his world of 1,000 BC.  Yet through the inspiration of God’s Spirit, David gives us a reassuring answer to our frustration and fears:
In the LORD I take refuge…
The LORD is in His holy temple;
the LORD’S throne is in heaven;

His eyes see, His eyelids test the sons of mankind (Psalm 11: 1, 4).

When David felt the foundations crumbling beneath him, he knew where to turn for refuge: “In the LORD I take refuge.”  

Of course, the “foundations” of which the Scriptures speak are not entirely physical.  They are also mental and spiritual in nature.  The Apostle Paul was very aware that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6: 12).  Paul’s answer is to challenge us to “put on the full armor of God which includes the “helmet of salvation,” the “belt of truth,” and the “sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6: 14, 17).  All of these armaments are intended to protect our minds and how we think.

How do we maintain our mental, emotional, and spiritual health in a culture in which the spiritual foundation crumbles and "ancient boundaries" are ignored?  The Apostle Paul’s answer was to “put on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6: 11).  He wrote to Timothy with this testimony:  I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to protect what I have entrusted to Him until that day.  Note the highlighted references to “knowing, believing, and entrusting.”  All of these involve our minds and reasoning.

Being prepared with God’s mental and spiritual armor to live in a spiritually crumbling culture means we should be a people who “know something!  We ought to know the truth about God, about ourselves, and about the world in which we live.  How about you?  What can you say for sure that “you know?”  Here are some “things I know” based on my recent birthday reflections:

These Things I Know:

I Am Seen
Although there have been many times when I thought I could run and hide from my parents, and later in life, from God Himself, I learned that trying to hide is pointless.  David expressed this so well in Psalm 139: 11-12:

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me,
   and the light become night around me”—
even the darkness is not dark to You,
   but the night shines like the day,
   for darkness is as light to You.

In Genesis 16: 14, we are introduced to the “God who sees” (El Roi).  God saw and had compassion on Abraham’s dismissed handmaid, Hagar.  When she and her son, Ishmael, were dismissed to make their way in the wilderness, Hagar is comforted and nourished by God whom she called El Roi.   Even if I am in the remotest part of the sea, David reminds me that, “even there His hand leads me, and [His] right hand shall hold me (Psalm 139: 10)?   God not only sees me but, through the revelation of His Son Jesus Christ, He is “the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world (John 1: 9).” 

Before 1972, as a student at Malone College, I was walking in darkness, dead in my trespasses and sin (Ephesians 2: 3-5).  My life was much like that of now beloved theologian, R.C. Sproul, who was on his way to party the night away when he ran into one of the captains of his football team at Westminster College.  The captain showed him Ecclesiastes 11: 3 which states, whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will lie.  Sproul was convicted by the Word and Holy Spirit, saw himself as that fallen tree, dead and rotting on the ground.  He went home, was convicted that he was a sinner in need of God’s forgiveness and salvation, and called on God to save him.  Like Sproul, I too was dead and in darkness, but God found me.

I Am Not Alone
I know that I am not alone in this world.  I have a wonderful network of family and friends who love me.  But we’ve all experienced those times, either in a crowd or by ourselves, when a sense of aloneness and loneliness rolls over us.  We ask ourselves, “Does anyone really care about me?  Does God care?  Does He really see me now?”  Or, “Is there really anyone out there with whom I can continually relate?”

In times of our loneliness, the answers come from One who is never far away from us.  Although the Risen Christ ascended into Heaven, He promised His followers, as John 14: 16 records, that He would leave us “a Comforter” (also called “a Helper” or “an Advocate”).  He is the Holy Spirit of God who comes to abide within the life of every Christ-follower.

In his book, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Suffers, Dane Ortlund writes, "Our tendency is to feel intuitively that the more difficult life gets, the more alone we are.  As we sink further into pain, we sink further into felt isolation. The Bible corrects us. Our pain never outstrips what He Himself shares in. We are never alone. That sorrow that feels so isolating, so unique, was endured by him in the past and is now shouldered by him in the present (p.48).”  Ortland concludes, "If you are in Christ, you have a Friend who, in your sorrow, will never lob down a pep talk from Heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at a distance.  Nothing can hold him back.  His heart is too bound up with yours (p. 50)."

But God’s Spirit comforts us.  To “com-fort” is to “COMe with FORTification of faith,” by means of the Word of God.  Someone has said that the Spirit is the locomotive of our faith, but we must be “on the train tracks” of God’s Word for us to know the blessing of the Spirit’s power.  For me, God’s Spirit brings to mind Scriptures that have become real to me.  Here are some of those for your reference:   Psalm 1, 5, 12, 23, 31, 32, 42, 46, 62, 65, 84, 90, 91, 130, 131, and 139; John 1, 14, 17; Romans 5: 1-8 and Chapter 8; 2 Corinthians 1: 1-7; 4: 5-7 and 16-18; Ephesians 1: 1-2: 10; Philippians 3: 4-14; Hebrews 10: 19-39; 1 John 2: 1-2; 3: 1-3.

I Am Kept
Admittedly, most of us are comforted by the likelihood that our food and water will be there when we need it; law enforcement is there to protect us (barring many of our urban landscapes); and, many of us have a savings account and retirement funds.  But none of these are our ultimate “keepers.”  Only God is powerful and all-knowing enough to make and keep His promise that He “will never leave or forsake you ((Hebrews 13: 5).”  In the Gospel of John, chapter 10, Jesus presents Himself as the Good Shepherd.  Jesus says the sheep, representing those of us who know Him personally, they “hear His voice” (v. 3), “He calls them by name” (v. 3), “knows His own” sheep (v. 14), “lays down His life for the sheep” (v. 11), and He gives “eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of [His] hand” nor His “Father’s hand” (v. 28-29).

What can be more assuring to us who know Christ than to have a personal relationship with a God who is good, righteous, and faithful to His promises.  Many of you can testify as I have just done that God (El Roi) sees us.  He is near unto us at all times as our Comforter and Advocate, and He keeps us as our Good Shepherd.  But, beyond these three assurances is the fact that God invites us into personal relationship with Him.

I Am Invited
Because of His unfailing love, since the Garden of Eden, God has sought to restore fellowship with the fallen descendants of Adam.  I am one of Adam’s fallen sons who, by His grace and mercy, God called and I responded in faith to come.  

In the Old Testament, God called through His prophet Isaiah, Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters… (Isaiah 55:1).  In the New Testament, God came as Emmanuel, “God with us.”  Emmanuel, as Jesus, stood on the great day of the feast, and cried out with the same words He spoke through Isaiah centuries earlier, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink (John 7: 37). 

Jesus’ audience knew the severity of physical thirst and some responded to His invitation to come and have their spiritual thirst quenched.  Jesus still offers His loving invitation, but the human tendency is to disbelieve, reject, and run from Him.  Truth is, we don’t like what we see in ourselves.  And, we are afraid God won’t like it either.  Yet the Bible makes it clear from Genesis to Revelation that God loves His creation and He loves us. 

I Am Loved
I believe God loves me.  But, do I love myself?  And, what is there that God knows and loves in me that I ought to know and love?

The Bible endorses self-love as long as it is not a selfish love of self.  According to Jesus, the “Great and Foremost Commandment” is to love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matthew 22: 37).  Jesus adds that the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (v. 39, emphasis added).   Let’s follow the logic of “loving God and loving ourselves.”

Applying ‘Love Logic:
1) I cannot love my neighbor as God commands if I don’t     
    love myself.
2) If I don’t love myself, I'll tend to hide or run from God. 
3) In spite of what I know and think about myself,
    God knows (Psalm 139) and loves me (John 3: 16).
4) I must come to know God who knows and loves me so
    that I can know myself more nearly as God knows me…
5) … which, in turn, will give me more of God’s love to
    offer back toward Him, toward my neighbor, and toward
    myself.

It seems clear that loving God and loving ourselves are bound tightly with knowing and loving God, and knowing and loving ourselves.  To understand and apply this knowledge, I’ve been digging deeper.  Please stay and follow me as we dive deeper.

Knowing God, Knowing Ourselves
So far, we have discussed “things I know” as a part of my relationship with God.  Because of God’s nearness and love, I know that I am seen, I am not alone, I am kept, I am invited, and I am loved.  All of these assurances point to one purpose of God toward me:  That I might know God; and, the more I come to know God, the more I love Him and want to please Him (1 John 3: 22), and love and enjoy what He loves and enjoys; namely, myself and others. 

In The Gift of Being Yourself:  The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery InterVarsity, 2015), David G. Benner writes, "Christian spirituality involves a transformation of the self that occurs only when God and self are both deeply known… There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self, and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God. John Calvin wrote, "nearly the whole of sacred doctrine consists in these two parts: knowledge of God and of ourselves (p. 22)."

Ignore Knowing Self
Some of us have emphasized “knowing God” while minimizing the importance of knowing ourselves.  But Benner warns against this view: “One consequence of our tendency to focus on knowing God and ignoring knowing ourselves is that we "may produce an external form of piety, but it will always leave a gap between appearance and reality. This is dangerous to the soul of anyone--and in spiritual leaders it can also be disastrous for those they lead (page 22)."

Benner concludes, "Knowing God and knowing self are therefore interdependent.  Neither can proceed very far without the other. Paradoxically, we come to know God best not by looking at God exclusively, but by looking at God and then looking at ourselves-- then looking at God, and then again looking at ourselves. This is also the way we best come to know ourselves.  Both God and self are mostly fully known in relationship to each other (p. 27).”

Continue in the Word
But what does it mean to "look at God?" Jesus gives an answer in terms of our discipleship.  In John 8: 31-32 (emphasis added), Jesus invites those Jews who had believed Him, If you continue in My word then you are truly disciples of Mine and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.  The emphasis of Jesus's instruction is continuing in, abiding in, and submitting to God's Word as a disciple in order to know the truth.  Ellicott interprets Jesus’s invitation in terms of Jesus’s intercessory prayer for His disciples, "Sanctify them in the truth: Thy word is truth (John 17: 17).”  And where do His disciples look for truth?  We look to Jesus who said to Thomas, "I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14: 6)."

The Apostle Paul pictured “knowing God” as the spiritual transformation (and transfiguration) that comes from actively looking at God (emphasis added):  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3: 18).  In reference to "beholding the glory of the Lord," Jackie Hill Perry, in Holier Than Thou: How God's Holiness Helps Us Trust Him, 2021, B&H Publishing), asks the question, "but where do we look?  What can show us such glory that we might be changed by it?  

Where we look is simple, accessible, and not hidden from us.  It is the Holy Scriptures that put forth a constant picture of God, as He is to be seen and understood.  Inspired by the Holy Ghost, preserved by Him, and interpreted with His illuminative help too, it is there, in the pages scattered with narratives, songs, poems, and letters, that we can behold Christ.  Perry cites the wonderful account of the resurrected Christ opening the Scriptures to the two confused men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 27).  In this account, our Risen Lord shows how the light of truth from the Word of God can shine forth the glory of Christ.  After Christ had opened the Old Testament Scriptures to them, the men exclaimed, Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us (v. 32)?”

In summary, when we become His disciples and accept Jesus’s invitation to “continue in His Word,” our lives are transformed because we come to know the truth—truth about God, and truth about ourselves.  Maybe you noticed the repeated association between “truth” and “light” in the Scriptures above.  As we are transformed by continuing upon God’s truth, the Word brings light which dispels spiritual darkness.  Or, as Jesus promised, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free (John 8: 32)."

Ellicott, explains beautifully the transformative power of truth and light: “The light of truth dispels the darkness in which lies the stronghold of evil.  Sin is the bondage of the powers of the soul, and this bondage is willed because the soul does not see its fearful evil.  When it perceives the truth, there comes to it a power which rouses it from its stupor, and strengthens it to break the fetters by which it has been bound.  Freedom from the Roman rule was one of the national hopes bound up with Messiah's Advent.  There is indeed a freedom from a more crushing foe than the legions of Rome.”

My Birthday Gift
Thanks to you the reader for staying with me for my birthday ponderings.  I hope they have been as spiritually encouraging to you as my study and writing of these things have been to me.  If you are a Christ-follower, I hope you are encouraged by the promises of Scripture that you are seen, not alone, kept, invited, and loved by God.  And, above all, that you have a new resolve to come to know God more, and in so doing, to love and enjoy Him; and, to love and enjoy what He loves and enjoys; namely, you, other people, and His creation in which you live.  Please use the “Comments” link below if  you’d like to share insights or questions; or, you may contact me at silviusj@gmail.com .

If you do not have a personal relationship with God through Christ that gives God’s love, joy, and peace, I urge you to contact me at silviusj@gmail.com . To learn more about the Good News (Gospel) of Christ and His Salvation, check out the simple outline, “Steps to Peace with God” by clicking HERE. It provides helpful Scripture and a prayer.

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.  -- John 17: 3 

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Acknowledgement:
Our thanks to God’s Spirit for His inspiration in writing this blog; hopefully, it reflects His will and truth.   Thanks also to our granddaughter by marriage, G.S., for the gift of David G. Benner’s The Gift of Being Yourself; to our granddaughter, Kiara, for the gift of Jackie Hill Perry’s Holier Than Now; and, to Steve, our son by marriage, for the gift of Henri Nouwen’s The Selfless Way of Christ.