Like an old friend

How does the writer know his character or the painter his subject? How does the builder know his house but to build it? How does one know his life but to live it or himself but to know the One who gave him the source of it? How should we know God but to spend time with Him? How do we know God but to turn our attention away from that nature so familiar as to misdirect us from the nature He wishes us to know? Love God. Of the two natures within us, there is one with which we are most intimate, the one desirous of jamoca almond fudge ice cream, demanding of our attention, confining us and defining us; and the other, His image within, the one with which we are familiar and have been told it resides inside us, placed there when He created us, and yet conditionally seek its counsel. Wasn’t it C.S. Lewis who likened our nature as such: "Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (From the Weight of Glory) Too often do we describe God using human terms. It’s as though we wish to make God like us, to make the human experience the common denominator, to make Him relatable by making Him as that which we know best—ourselves. Then, when in succeeding in the making of Him, we omit Him by convenience, take credit for His doing as our own. We may be too easily pleased, but we are industrious with our pleasing. But of that image of Him within us, that often faint light in the dark we strain to see, shielded by those weak desires, will become the brightest of all light if we walk toward it. How can we know God but to love God and to love God is to know Him. And yes, we are too easily distracted because knowing God appears to us to be a mountain too hard to climb. The journey from knowing about God to knowing God is like remembering an old friend you have not seen in quite some while. The memory is as close as the time you spent with him. You have planned a trip and will be near where he lives. You reach out to let him know you will be there and would like to get together. When you meet, all is as they say, like yesterday. God’s image within us is like that memory. It resides there waiting for us to reconnect. When finally we make this effort, everything about the encounter is natural and easy. This is because God remembers his old friend, too.