Knowing God vs. knowing about God

As I was out hiking the other day I kept wrestling with these two questions, “What is it in the wilderness experience that so jazzes my faith? Why is it so important to me?” The questions are not new to me. I have thought about them often. I have even come up with some pretty  decent answers. But they have not been the answer that seals the deal for me, the answer that screams, “That’s it!”

So I walk and I think and I hike and I ruminate and the miles click by with the hours and trails.

That was the case until this morning. Somewhere between the hospital front door and my car parked a block or so  down the road in Centennial Park, it hit me. The theological impact of the wilderness experience is powerful and compelling to me because it lets me know God.

All my life I have been a Christian. Certainly there was a time as a young adult I was a rebelling questioning Christian, but even then I was a believer of sorts. I say of sorts because I was raised in a mostly Christian community by a Christian family going to a Christian church. There was, indeed, no way for me not to know of God. But knowing of God  is vastly different from knowing God. Knowing of is simply an awareness of the claims and possibilities, which in and of itself makes no claim on you or your life.

During the time I wandered, strayed and investigated life as a young adult, I studied anything I could get my hands on that claimed to explain who God was and how God acted. The end result was a lot of shared knowledge about God. But knowing about God is vastly different from knowing God. Knowing about breeds familiarity which is still a long way from relationship.

In the wilderness, often walking alone and honestly reflecting on who I am and who I am not or what I have done and left undone, God presents God’s self to me to be experienced and known. And in knowing God, my relationship with God, God’s profound grace and God’s hope for my life are all ratified and made real to me. It is no longer about an awareness or even a wealth of information, it is about being in relationship with a loving God who walks with me on the mountain tops or “in the valley of the shadow of death.”

Knowing God does not release me from my responsibility to be aware of God or to learn about God. Actually, both of those things work in concert with getting to know God. BUT, too many Christians and believers in God by any name, stop at knowing of and/or knowing about God and miss out on the real gift and joy and power of God.

So the question that haunts me today and every day is, “Am I leaving time and space in my life to truly know God?”

Just another thought from the shallows….

(I am indebted to J.I. Packer for first helping to understand the subtle but vast difference a preposition can make in dealing with God.)

Dr. Jeff Wilson grew up in Nashville, has ties to both UT and Vandy, and has served as senior pastor at numerous churches throughout the South and in Texas. He and his family now call Brentwood home where they own a business. He also serves on the Brentwood United Methodist Church staff. Click here to read his recent columns.