A Life Designed for Knowing God

Our life events and situations have one purpose in their design: that we would come to know our God. Happiness in itself is not the goal; happiness is the result of connecting with God. Life is a continual invitation by our Creator for us to know Him in every facet of existence. And knowing Him is the source of our fulfillment and joy.

Knowing God Deeply

But this knowledge of God is not mere head knowledge. It’s an experiential, interactive, and intimate knowing. This knowledge is yadah, which in Hebrew means ‘an increasingly deep intimacy.’ It’s ‘knowing’ as in the caress of bridal communion. Imagine! Life is the stage set for our intimate knowledge of God, a rich knowing of the Most High. This gives me a different perspective on life crises and trauma. These situations are transformed from something I have to endure into an opportunity of knowing Him. I don’t believe this is just some Pollyanna view of life. It is THE purpose and design of life for those called by God.

I have often approached unpleasant or traumatic situations as something to get over or move past. We pay therapists to free us of those things in our lives we wish to forget. “Help me to refocus and leave that which caused me pain.” And if it’s not something I can talk out, then perhaps they’ll medicate it out of me. In saying this, I’m not discounting the necessity for therapy or medication for those who need it. I’m trying to give a higher view of the whole.

Martha’s booklet, God’s Sovereignty, is a powerful illustration of this. From the section titled “Cause and Effect:”

“You are a book, ‘a living epistle known and read of men’ (2 Cor. 3:3). God has written a story on you. He has a message through you – you will be healthy and sane only as you live that story, deliver your message and not another, because any other will be a lie. We are capable of making up our own story!”

Knowing Him in Pain

If I grapple with getting free from life, then this is where my energies are exhausted. On the other hand, if I see the overarching intent of my pain, then it is given purpose. Pain with purpose is easier to take than pointless agonies.

So what I’m saying is that LIFE, with all its multifaceted expressions, is purposed for the intimate knowledge of our great God. Is it painless? No! But within this focus, hopelessness becomes hope, and the painful becomes purposed.

[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]
Philippians 3:10 AMP