A week since the last post

It's been a week since the last post. I had to have another conversation with my contextual education supervisor again tonight after 9th grade confirmation. We were talking about relationships tonight, things that make a good relationship. The students came up with a list of terms, maybe about 20. As I sat there listening, I thought back to the over-arching topic from last week: knowing. It reminded me of a conversation I had last week with some people around the lunch table. We were talking about original sin and some other stuff. Somehow, there was a point in the conversation where it seemed fitting for me to talk about the conversation from confirmation the previous Sunday evening. One of the passages we looked at that week was Matthew 7:21-23, which says: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'"

During the conversation, somebody mentioned that they believed that God knows them. Tonight's conversation reminded me of that and got me thinking. What is the definition of knowing? When we say that God knows us, what are we really saying? Are we talking about God knowing the number of hairs on our heads, knowing what we've done and what we will do, or are we talking about a relational kind of knowing? It makes me wonder what kind of knowing that somebody was talking about because I don't believe God can have a relationship with us through Christ if we're not talking to Him, allowing ourselves to be known by Him. I don't believe God can have a relationship with us through Christ if we don't respond to that call to be in that relationship through Christ.

My apologies if the above thoughts do not make sense or sound coherent. Tomorrow I'll post something about mission, lifeboats, and denominations.