How Well Do You Really Know Him?

One summer when I was in high school, I met two boys at a Christian teen conference. We became fast friends.

We walked together to our workshop sessions and reclined outside on picnic blankets during the breaks. All the while, we shared stories of our lives back home.

These boys were country boys. They hailed from a small town in central Illinois with more livestock than people. The town had a gas station and one stoplight. I wasn’t from a metropolis, but compared to their town, mine was more like a city.

I spent my weekends cruising around, going to see bands, and bowling under black lights. These boys told stories of bonfires, pontoon boats, and target practice with shotguns.

The sweat poured down my brow during that summer conference, but I laughed at the stories. Their plans and hobbies seemed so uncivilized. At one point I inquired about who organized these get-togethers. Who on earth came up with these ideas?

The two young men looked at each other, and replied in unison, “Chance.” The previous weekend, this Chance character had invited more than thirty people to his house for a bonfire. During the party, he showed off a new discovery — if you set a can of spray paint next to a bonfire, shooting the can with a shotgun will result in an enormous mushroom cloud of flames.

Whatever.

I obviously lacked the testosterone necessary to think Chance’s mushroom cloud of flames was “totally awesome.”

On my very first day of Bible college, I found myself face to face with one of those same country boys. I had said goodbye to my parents, arranged my dorm room just so, and eaten my first campus dining hall meal. The boy recognized me on the quad and shouted a greeting. He had a different friend with him that day, and in an anti-climactic way, I was introduced to the infamous Chance.

Chance’s reputation preceded him. I assumed I knew exactly who he was even before hearing him speak. For sure, he was much too country to relate to this city girl.

One week later, Chance asked if a “city girl” like myself could date a “country boy” like him. I said no. I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t allow myself to be with the guy whose fame preceded him—especially a kind of fame that seemed less than desirable to me.

But as I spent time with the ever-persistent Chance, I learned who he really was. Yes, he was the type of guy who singed off his leg hair lighting things on fire, but he was also the type of guy who organized a weekend party in order to bring people together. He was generous. He was a deep thinker with strong morals.

Eventually, that mushroom-cloud-creating pyromaniac waited for me at the end of the church aisle in the “city” where I grew up.

Recently, that country boy was also the one who gently pointed out I was approaching God with the same close-mindedness with which I had originally approached him. I grew up in the church. I had heard so much about God. I thought I knew him.

But maybe I had just heard about him.

As opposed to date nights and late-night phone calls, God speaks to us through his revelation — his Word. If I really, truly want to know God and his attributes–his likes, his dislikes, his stories, and his character–I need to read about him in his Word.

Some days, though, I find myself reading only blogs and books about God. I have his actual words available, but I choose to read others’ views of him. I struggle to sit down and replace my perception of God with who he actually is.

The Lord’s fame has preceded him, but if I would just open my mind to who he really is, reading his words would give me the proper view of my heavenly Father.

It’s time to stop listening only to others’ stories and thoughts about God. It’s time to open the Bible and learn who he really is, because I guarantee his story is even better than the story of a country boy convincing a city girl to marry him.

At home, Ginger Newingham is in charge of wiping noses, wiping bottoms, wiping mouths, and wiping off the table (with different rags, of course!). She and her husband live in Athens, IL with their three children – a Bulgarian, a biological son, and a Latvian. Ginger blogs at ourmomentsdefined.com about living intentionally while raising two adopted sons with special needs.