December 3, 2018

Weekly Reflection – Getting to Know God

Are you getting to know God, your Father in heaven, in an intimate way? My father was a world-class craftsman.  He could build anything!  In addition to being an airplane mechanic and pilot, he was always building something around the house.

After retiring he built two houses by himself.  Wood, metal, electrical, he could do it all.  And he could figure out how anything works.  Once, when he was trying to understand how an automobile transmission worked, he learned by constructing a working wooden model of it!

Dad could figure anything out.  But he never figured the God thing out.  Confirmed as a teenager in the Lutheran Church, he never got beyond that spiritually.  And in the end, he regretted it.  I heard him, in despair, say on one of those last days, “I guess I will just be one of those Hells Angels.”It has always haunted me that I could not help him more at that time.

Recently, I heard a talk by Thomas Keating in which he asked, “What is your starting point for theological reflection?”  He went on to contrast the Western model, which is based on logic and reason to that of the East, which he feels is more Scripture-based.  As an aside, he said that the two sides will never get together so long as they are coming from such different starting points.

Keating went on to suggest that one can get to know God through relationships. The scriptures say that God is love. Love is relationship based. Hmmm.  If we see love between two people, it is like seeing the face of God in the other.

I wonder how things might have turned out if Dad had heard that approach.  Of course, the reason and logic side is appropriate and necessary, but sometimes we just need to see the face of God before we can get to know him.

Blessings and peace,

Chaplain Allen
chaplain@nationsu.edu
chaplainscorner.org

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed us his love among us.  He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love; not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
(I John 4:7-12)

For more, read the reflection on, Child of God