Sunday School ruminations

First, I must acknowledge that after last week's EQ lesson on keeping the Sabbath day holy, I skipped EQ to drive up to Sandy and have lunch at a restaurant with my uncle. So, I'm a bit of a chanef, a hypocrite. I just think I have to admit that.

Anyway, so before I went all sabbath-breaky, I was in Gospel Essentials class, and had an interesting thought. The lesson was the first one in the manual (we have started over again), and it concerned our Heavenly Father. Midway through, we read John 17:3, which of course reads:

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

The teacher started asking us what this verse meant, and how we could come to know God. Well, in response to such a question, it would be easy to reach out and let the "ready-made phrases come crowding in," as I too often do in church. But I really do want to know the answer to this question, and not just the stock answers that thoughtlessly spring to the tongue.

At the judgement day, those who know God, and are known by him, will come to live with him. That's where I want to be. And I must confess (again) that I could not answer today that I know God. I want to know him, and I have felt his influence in my life from time to time, but there is something more I lack.

It is true, I think, that in our natural state, God is unknowable to us. His actions seem to us mysterious; his thoughts, his motivations, seem unfathomable, even alien.

But ultimately, we have the promise that we can know our master even as he knows us. And if God is knowable, then the question of how we come to know him truly is the fundamental question to be answered in life.

So, sitting there in Sunday School, I read the verses around John 17:3, looking for some context. And I found something interesting in the previous verses:

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

If Jesus has the power to give us eternal life, and eternal life is knowing God, then Jesus has the power to help us know God. Everything sounds a little stupid and a little obvious when you write it down, but this struck me as interesting. Jesus can help me know God. Okay, so how does this actually happen?

I came up with two answers. First, I can come to know God through repenting in the name of his Son. Not only does repentance make me a more godly person, more worthy of his divine fellowship, but the process itself brings us closer together. Each time I repent, and am forgiven of my sins, I feel the love of God, and I know him better.

Second, if Jesus has the power to help me know God, then perhaps I should just pray to God and ask, in the name of his Son, for this knowledge. We are also instructed to pray and ask God for the gift of charity, so why not for this good gift? Why not just ask God to reveal himself to us by his Spirit? Of course, we must do more than just ask, but I think that perhaps asking for this knowledge is a necessary part of how we come to know God.

In any case, I got called upon to give the closing prayer after the lesson, and in my prayer, I asked God in the name of his son Jesus to help us to know him as he has always known us.

He is, after all, our Father. And although we are estranged from him in this temporal world, our spirits still cry out to him, and he will hear our prayers.

--MOISHE