A few years ago I found myself engaging in a lot of debate and discussion about Christianity.  I found myself in conversations with atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, cult followers, evolutionists, creationists, etc etc etc.  It was exciting and challenging and forced me to really take a look at what I believed.  It was around this time (and perhaps at this time) that I also got really interested in looking into theology and the basis of my own Christian Beliefs.  After all, if you’re going to defend something, you better know what it is that you’re defending…right? 

 I found myself searching scriptures, studying apologetics, and discussing with both Christians and non-Christians on topics of religion, creation, and Jesus.  It was wonderful.  Many times I found myself stumped, many times I was challenged by an opposing idea, and a few times I was able to, using the appropriate resources, formulate a relatively decent argument.  I found myself starting to win one or two of these debates.  Honestly, it’s fun to be “right”.  I had found a fuel for my competitive nature that I never realized prior to those conversations.  Did I mention it was fun? 

 Somehow, in the middle of all this, I slowly became convicted that my “search for truth” with these people was no longer a “search”.  That search had snowballed into a battle of wit and will.  It became less about discovery and more about proving and convincing others that my view was right and theirs was wrong.  I found myself loving my arguments more…and loving the people I was arguing with a lot less.  Yes, ashamedly, I became one of “those Christians”… the sad part was, for a while, I didn’t even know it.   

  Eventually, my fuel ran weak, and in His Grace, God began to show those conversations for what they truly were, battles of pride.  I realized that I wasn’t the missionary I thought I was and I realized how easily pride can sneak in and take over in my heart.  My search for God and my quest for conversion had taken on a purely intellectual and philosophical nature.  What little intimacy I had built up with God had completely faded into the background of the power and control I had established.  It was about me.  It was about winning.  Truth, Scriptures, and my understanding of God were merely the vehicle.

 It’s been several years since these encounters, but I still carry with me a lesson that God taught me through it.  I think that as people, especially those of us who enjoy learning and thinking about things, it’s very easy for us to get caught up in the cognitive aspect of Christianity.  We learn about the History, we memorize doctrinal ideas; we memorize apologetic viewpoints and delivery strategies.  Whatever we can do to be ready in and out of season (2Tim2:4) - we do it!  These are not bad things in and of themselves.  Clearly, scripture tells us to be prepared.  And we are warned of those who will come with false doctrine and teachings that are not true.  There are things we should know…but I don’t think it should stop there.  It is very important to learn about God.  I will add, however, that accumulation of knowledge is good, but in the absence of intimacy…it can become fatal. 

 Such downfalls of knowledge without intimacy are seen in the Pharisees and Jewish Leaders who argued with, disregarded and ultimately killed Jesus on the Cross.  They knew the Scriptures and Prophecies of their Savior better than anyone…and they still failed to recognize their God when He stared them directly in the eyes.  They knew the law of God (knowledge), but they didn’t know God (intimately).  The result of this difference carries an eternal weight.  The weight of this difference many of us fail to realize.     

 I look back in those days of debate and I see a personal pursuit of knowledge happening in the absence of intimacy with the Lord.  It’s almost comical too, when I see the Truth I was able to dispense to others during those debates and also during other occasions of need.  Compare that to me a few years later, getting my socks rocked by God as He began to teach me what Truth really is…and how little of it I actually believed for myself.  The difference did not lie in the truth that was presented (truth is truth), but rather in how I began to know and understand that Truth beyond the cognitive realm.  It was truth learned internally…through intimacy…and allowed to take root in a way that, I believe, began to transform me even more than I ever thought necessary (at least not until I saw what my need was for change, after the fact). 

 So, why am I brining this up?  Well, for one, it’s been on my mind.  I’ve done a lot of “church” lately.  The past two weekends have been spent at some form of Christian/Church Conference, learning about God and Church on a very practical, cognitive level.  It was only in one of those many sessions that the leader stopped and challenged me to stop looking at scripture for an answer to fill in my blanks in bible study and to stop looking at scripture as a means for my own personal control and power, but rather to search the scriptures as if I’m reading a letter from a lover…read and search not by my drive to know as much as I can, but rather read and search because of that insatiable longing for my lover…that longing that God implanted in each of us…the one that only He can fill through an intimate and dynamic relationship.    

 I wonder how many of us do this.  How many of our bibles have become a textbook?  It sounds cliché, but how hard would it be to stop studying as if we have a mid term coming up… and started reading to intimately know the heart of our Lord, our Father, and our King?  At first we may find ourselves stumbling across the words and verses we know all too well.  But, knowing that God’s desire is to know and be known, I can only imagine that this approach would take us to a depth of knowing God that is beyond anything that a “textbook” could ever do.  I smile at the thought of what that might mean and look like…

“How lovely is your dwelling place,
O’Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns and even faints for you”
(Psalm 84:1-2)