Understanding and Acceptance

Understanding and Acceptance

Verse of the Day: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭4:7‬

These are two key behaviors in my spiritual belief.  I’m not sure where they are applied in yours, but they are very important to me.  This is part of the progression in going from existing with belief and being a believer.  From passive to active. From pretend to for-real. 

While I was growing up, my brother and I went to church regularly, we went to a private Christian school and we attended vacation Bible school during the summer. We were familiar with God. And for me, I never developed a relationship with Him but I knew of Him. 

As with so many people, I knew and believed He existed, unless something troublesome happened in my life and I chose not to believe anymore. It was a belief of convenience. I wasn’t dependent on Him. The relationship never began. My brother tried over the years to get me to turn to God for a relationship and I would always tell him, “I’m good”. 

I went to church because I was supposed to. I turned to God a couple of times in prayer. I even went to small group Bible studies. But I never got it. 

There were so many big words associated with understanding God. Salvation, repentance, reconciliation, predestination, rebuke, soteriology, apologetics, etc, etc, etc. And then all the memorized verses. People in this circle were able to throw out six to twenty memorized verses on a whim. How was this suppose to make sense? How was this easy for anyone?  And then there were the fakes. People that went to church, talked the talk and then lived another life. I didn’t even have the talk right. Much less the walk. And I definitely couldn’t do both and chew gum at the same time. 

It was an entirely different life and it seemed so difficult. It was on a different level. I wanted to be one, but I didn’t know how. Then there was the plan of salvation. As if the words weren’t hard enough, now there was a plan. And it had like twelve checkpoints. Then after that there was baptism and all you had to do was ask Jesus to come into your life. And then there was the Holy Spirit. 

I knew nothing of all of this and it actually pushed me away because it seemed so foreign and difficult and challenging and scary. 

It was the understanding that was the hardest part. Where did I start?  What did I have to do first?

When I flipped my life upside down and turned to God, it was at that moment that it made sense. Just turn to God. The rest will come in time. Put everything else aside and turn to God. So I did. 

I put the alcohol aside. I put the tobacco aside. I put the music aside. I put the friends aside. I put the world aside. I was losing everything and gaining much much more. 

I tried to throw thousands of gallons of water (understanding) into a sixteen ounce cup (my brain). And it was overflowing everywhere. I had to slow down, I was getting overwhelmed. I started out with a Bible study, reading the Bible, praying, starting a prayer journal, church three days a week, memorizing the books of the Bible, listening to four hours of sermons a day. It was too much. There was too much information.  I couldn’t understand it all. 

I had a basic introduction to my belief when I was younger and through my adult life, and I was struggling. I wasn’t super smart, but I wasn’t horribly ignorant either. And I was still struggling. 

Imagine someone who has never heard the gospel? Imagine their first time in church? We make things so complicated to understand in the very beginning. 

But I remember what my brother said to me. He made it so comforting. He made it so simple. He said - pray to God and ask Him to come into your life and save you from yourself. That’s it?  I tried to complicate it and ask if I did it right. I asked him how I knew if it worked. Did I need to follow up with anything? Should I check back in a week?  We overcomplicate everything and I was no exception. 

That was pretty simple. I didn’t need a plan, I didn’t need to memorize anything. Although those things would come later, all I had to do was put my trust in God. Not me. 

After that my brother added these two things; get into a Bible preaching church and start praying every day.  And then what happened would begin to change my life. My life didn’t change overnight. Far from it. What I would experience was pure hell on earth. I struggled. My marriage struggled. My emotions would struggle. But I had somewhere to turn to. I had a relationship with God. I began to understand it. I had a church family. My life and my family were centered on God. It began to make sense. 

My brother didn’t say to start with memorizing verses. Or overwhelm yourself with sermons. Or start a Bible study. It was simple, ask God to save you from yourself, go to church and start praying. 

I would learn the rest with those basic ingredients. Going to church would get me around like-minded believers. Reading the Bible would lead to listening to sermons and asking questions from my Pastor. Praying would develop a relationship with God, which would lead to understanding. All of this would build faith. 

Understanding was a key concept. I had to understand in order to believe. I had to know why it was important. And then there was acceptance.

Acceptance was everything after the understanding. Once I understood what salvation was, what repentance was, what forgiveness truly was, after I understood all of these things, I was able to accept them. 

I can imagine what it is like for someone that doesn’t even know God like I know Him now. I can’t imagine how foreign it is for them to sit in church and hear someone ask them about salvation. Or to hear the Bible verses. 

We take our knowledge and our relationship for granted sometimes. Sometimes the years of experience are overwhelming for some.  I see people that have twenty, thirty, forty years of salvation - and they actually scare people. 

It shouldn’t be so scary to be saved from ourselves. Or so hard that no one wants to. 

Like the saying goes, if it was easy everyone would be doing it - well maybe it should be. 

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭1:7‬