Who is this?

“He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
- Mark 4:39-41

I wonder if sometimes we say “Who is this?” especially when we are supposed to know better. I was listening to a wonderful sermon by the Rev. Timothy Keller, a Presbyterian minister up in New York City discourse on Knowing God.

He started his preaching with the focus on the fact that none of the questions we have about God or Christ can be properly or rightly answered until we realize that we are encountering a person, not a religion. To this effect, we have to make an effort to actually relate to the person of God. He made a wonderful illustration that if there is an athlete whom all the girls love because he is a star football player, that person will expect that his prowess on the field is the way he can attract a woman. However, if he meets a rather bookish girl who “doesn’t know the difference between a first down and a hole in one” yet he wants to get her attention, he can’t give her a book on the rules of football, demand that she read it, and then be open to his advances based on the merits of his skill.

Rev. Keller stated that we have to get to know someone through the way they deem through their heart. So when Jesus says that he is “The Way, the Truth, and The Life, and that no one may know the Father except through him” it really challenged me to sit and think – am I trying to know God through the way God has designated that I know him. If you want to get to know a person, and they give you a list of their interests and times they are available to talk, would you then say “No, actually this time works better for me, and I only want to talk about this, so please change your preferences so that I might really get to know the real you.”

I shudder to think how many times in my life I’ve inadvertently been guilty of that, but I digress. Sometimes in God I want a willing accomplice, butler, chauffer, or ego-boost – but not necessarily to know His will much less put it above my own and into practice. It’s easy to be “always triumphant” when you’ve determined for yourself what “triumph” looks like (however legitimate your desires are) outside the will of God. Its also easy to be gravely disappointed in the same scheme of things. Christ reminds us that can’t even make one of our hairs turn white or black in our own power – how much moreso to accomplish all the things we plan and desire?

Knowing God takes us out of our will and fundamentally into God’s. Rev. Keller had a great quote from one of his mentors – Elisabeth Elliott – which I quote imperfectly from memory but the gist was that we never ask God for help in doing something, we rather ask God for the obedience and discipline to remain in His will – even and especially since we don’t always know the details and what exactly that will looks like.

This brings back the fundamental question of knowing God. Jesus’ disciples rebuked him first – asking emphatically “Don’t you care that we’re about to die?!?!” How many times do we do that in our lives in different and desperate situations – yet without realizing that Christ could just as easily respond “Don’t you care that I died to give you eternal life that you may know God?”

I pray that I can stop asking "Who is this?" so much and get to know him better, especially through this time of Lent. God bless.