intersect, where the bible meets life

I Really Didn't Know!

I’m always encouraged when I read that Bible characters and writers didn’t know some things. Take Jacob, for example. He wasn’t aware that God was in that lonely place where he’d been sleeping. Balaam didn’t know that the Lord’s angel stood beside his mouthy donkey. And even Job admitted he really did not know what he was saying in his disputes with the Lord. Jeremiah’s own people were plotting to assassinate him, and he was in the dark about it.

Then there was Paul. Oops! Even the great apostle didn’t recognize Ananias the high priest when he broadsided the Sanhedrin chief in Acts 23.

In that vein, then, I offer just a few of the many things I didn’t know in my more callow years (many of which I am still trying to figure out).

• how fun it was to watch two little boys wake up on December 25 and discover what was under the Christmas tree.
  

• my Dad knew so much, now that I can’t ask him so many things I need to know.
  

• how much I loved my first ministry calling as it led me into the Himalayas of God’s Word.
  

• how I would miss going to school, and how determined I would be to go back again if not for too little time and money.
  

• that grace is accepting the fact that God accepts me, as Brennan Manning says.
  

• how much I love and miss people who are now gone from my life.
  

• what I missed in not reading more of the classic works in world literature.
  

• I would miss that frisky seven-year-old boy plopping down in my lap every evening.
  

• how helpful it would have been to have taken voice lessons.
  

• I should have asked many more questions and listened a whole lot more.
  

• to live more in the moment rather than holding out for all the “potential” I was told about that never came.
  

• how deep depravity runs in my heart and mind.
  

• and recognize my tendencies to push boundaries just to affirm myself.
  

• that I should have taken the creation mandate more seriously so that “all my work may be praise.”
  

• people around me had such great stories I should have taken the time to hear.
  

• I should have worked more at becoming a fisherman.
  

• that I haven’t prayed on my knees enough.
  

• how I would regret not praying more with our children.
  

• my enormous sense of relief and gratitude to God in hearing the words, “We were able to remove all the tumor.”
  

• how much the routines of life shape my spiritual formation if I will embrace them as God’s grace to me.
  

• to remember people’s names and call them by name (Well, I did know that! I just didn’t do it!).
  

• that there really is no such thing as an “independent” church. That’s like saying a church is a “non-fellowshipping” church. They don’t exist.
  

• that I was letting what people thought of me add so much pretense to my life.
  

• what great people my teachers have been.
  

• I would only get one chance to fly in my uncle’s helicopter, and I turned him down.
  

• that I should have journaled consistently.
  

• how wonderful my mother’s cooking was. I miss her dumplings, hoe-cakes, fried potatoes, and collards.
  

• what a wonderful gift music would be in my life.
  

• just how special it was to watch number 56 play football for the Mustangs every Friday night.
  

• the gift of life that would come from the best organ donor ever, my wife Carol. Sign your organ donor card. Do it now while you’re thinking about it.
  

• and still don’t, how a mate could love me so unselfishly and unconditionally.
  

• how I would wish for one short snippet of video on YouTube® from my ball-playing days.
  

• that grandchildren could make you do things you wouldn’t do for anybody else in the world, ever.
  

• how satisfying God would be for me in everything through Jesus His Son.

Intersect: Where the Bible Meets Life is a regular column written by Dr. Garnett Reid, a member of the Bible faculty at Welch College. Visit his blog: www.garnettreid.com.