‘For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.’ - Thomas Merton
Truth understood intellectually, becomes embodied through experience. We can cognitively understand and grasp truths with our mind, but our desire should be to declare like the Psalmist - ‘…Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.’ (Psalm 139:14). This is understanding not just at the level of the mind, but at the very center of our being.
Lent begins in two weeks. A season of introspection and reflection before the celebration and joy of Easter. The spiritual disciple of fasting has traditionally accompanied the season of Lent. And one of the things that fasting can do is expose the gaps between our intellectual understanding (God is good), and our lived reality (God is good, my soul knows it very well). With the Psalmist we may declare intellectually ‘…there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You (Psalm 73:25).’ But as we give up and go without our functional saviors - as Tim Keller has called them - are exposed. Those things that we desire to give us value, significance, comfort, and worth. Yet this too is a gift - the chance to confess, turn to God and move our intellectual, hearsay understanding of God, to embodied reality.
God, in your kindness, would You expose the areas of our lives where we grasp the truths of Your character intellectually but live as though we do not believe? Might we know Your goodness and Your kindness not by hearsay but by our everyday walk with You? In Christ’s name, amen.
Learning,
AB