Growing in Understanding

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the need to do more than just hear about God—the need to better understand God and God’s ways. We can easily get emotional about God. And sometimes we can find ourselves sacrificing and pushing hard to accomplish what we believe God wants us to do. But do we study God? Yes, we may read our Bible every day, but how often do we sit down with our Bible, commentaries, books, and a pen and paper and let God speak to us as we dig deep into what God has said to us in scripture?

In Genesis 1, there was at first nothing but God—no time, no matter, no universe. Then God spoke. And God spoke again and again, and at the end of the chapter, there is a beautiful and full universe. John 1:1 tell us that in the beginning was the word—God speaking to us, telling us things.

This is a universe where God speaks to us. Yes, God wants us to feel feelings like love, kindness, goodness, mercy, and more. But God also wants us to know and to live meaningful, fruitful lives. But how do we do this? In the parable of the sower, one word in Jesus’s explanation is a key (see Matt. 13:18-23).

In this parable, someone sows seeds that represent the gospel on four different types of soil. The first three are unsuccessful; only the fourth bears fruit. One is grown on hard ground and cannot take root. One is sown on shallow, rocky ground and withers away with life’s difficulties. Another is sown among thorns and is choked by the worries of the world. Only the fourth seed is sown in good soil, takes root, and bears fruit. 

This parable tells us what it takes to grow in good soil. It requires us to hear God’s word and understand it. It is one thing to listen to the pastor’s sermon each week; it is one thing to read our Bible every day; it is one thing to read Christian books. But do we understand? Do we meditate on it? Do we study it?

That is why we attend Sunday school classes, why our pastors preach through books of the Bible—so we go beyond knowledge and to understanding. These help us understand who God is, what kind of person God wants us to be, what we should do, and how we should think. This is how we will be fruitful. Then we can say as Job did, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5, NRSVUE).

To help in your efforts to understand more about God, please visit my website www.disciplescorner.com.