The God I Never Knew

Several years ago, I was on the lookout for cedar shakes which are now on the gable ends of our house and above the front porch. I found a supplier at, of all places, the Trufant flea market. There was a man there named Johnny Fish who had driven an old couple home from Florida, and then lived with them and worked for them on a farm in Six Lakes. He had a separate little barn with a large circular saw set almost horizontal which turned cedar logs into shakes.

I visited more than once, sometimes dealing with Johnny Fish, and sometimes Mr. Petersen. Later, Johnny didn’t seem to be around, and then I had an unusual encounter with Mr. Peterson. He asked me if I would come into the house with him. I had never been in the house before. I had seen his wife at the door on previous visits, but not this time. I guess he knew that I was a pastor. I don’t know how people know, whether its how we walk or how we smell, I’m not sure. But he asked me to come in and then led me back to the bedroom.

He said his wife had died recently, and then, in the bedroom, he pulled open the top drawer of a dresser which I assumed had been hers. The top drawer was filled with pieces of paper on which were written poetry. Mr. Petersen started to cry, and he said, “I never knew my wife wrote poetry. I never really knew her.” Two people living as relative strangers for decades in the same house. Oh, I’m sure they knew a great deal about each other. But he didn’t know the interior of her life. He hadn’t bothered to notice. He hadn’t expended the energy to ask. He may have been too occupied with self.

We could talk about marriage health and all, but I’m thinking about “The God We Never Knew.” This God has given to us His Word, written over a period of 3000 years by many different authors, but all inspired by His Spirit so that it says exactly what He wants it to say, not written for Him, but for us. It is so that we can know who He is in truth, not just what we would like to imagine Him to be.

Now we must be clear, God knows us inside and out. We are not a mystery to Him. He does not need to read our poetry to figure us out. He knows us better than we know ourselves. No, it is we who need to know who God is, and it is not an
intuitive process. Intuition only allows us to project what we see in ourselves on others.

No, the need that we have is to get to know God, and that happens through a relationship with Jesus, by faith. But faith must be formed, and the formation of that faith comes through the content of what God has given us in His Word. We need to actually open the top drawer of the dresser and pull out the Bible and read what it says, take it to heart, and act upon it. We need to allow those words to facilitate an
introduction to God that allows us to know Him as He is, which will lead to worship and submission.

I don’t know much about how husbands and wives will relate to one another in heaven. But I’m sure that there will be no one in heaven who is left to admit, “You are the God I never knew” - the God you never bothered to notice; for whom you never expended the energy to seek; perhaps too occupied with self.